Renewable Energy Bill [HL]

Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Parliamentary Commissioner (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. The purpose of the Bill is to make a modern, practical reform; namely, to create a public right of direct access to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. It is five years since I introduced a similar Private Member's Bill, which also sought to create a direct avenue for members of the public to make complaints about administrative failure and neglect.
	Inaction by the Government over the past five years and renewed calls for direct access have prompted me to introduce this new version. It is a measure of practical importance, which I promote in the interests of active citizenship and improved accountability of government. I have modified my last Bill to meet concerns expressed at Second Reading by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on behalf of the Government. As a result, unlike my previous Bill, this Bill does not abolish the MP filter. It creates a dual mechanism for access to the ombudsman by maintaining the filter and by introducing direct access by members of the public.
	The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration was established in 1967 as one of the great reforms of the Labour government, the first government led by Harold Wilson. It was established to investigate complaints from members of the public of injustice resulting from maladministration by government departments. The Parliamentary Commissioner is an officer of the House of Commons and can undertake an investigation only at the request of an MP. The commissioner reports the result to the MP. That is the so-called "MP filter".
	The current commissioner is Ann Abraham. She makes an annual report to Parliament and is supported by the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration. The commissioner's investigative powers cover most types of administrative actions by more than 100 government departments and non-departmental public bodies. She has wide powers to carry out her investigations. She has the same powers as the High Court to compel witnesses to attend for examination and can require any Minister or civil servant to provide relevant information or documents.
	If she finds injustice by maladministration, she may recommend to the department concerned whatever action she thinks should be taken by way of redress, but she has no powers of enforcement. Departments almost invariably comply with her recommendations. Redress may take the form of an ex gratia payment to the complainant, an apology, or the reversal of the decision of which complaint was made. A department may also revise its procedures or practices for the future. If it appears to her that an injustice cannot be remedied, she may make a special report on the case to Parliament.
	Therefore, the PCA's office has great potential in promoting good government and in providing the citizen with an inexpensive and non-adversarial form of redress for injustice resulting from maladministration. The office has become a universally accepted and well established part of our parliamentary system of government, and has increased ministerial accountability. One great attraction of the system as an alternative to the legal process is that it is informal, relatively speedy and involves no financial cost for the complainant. It is an excellent form of alternative dispute resolution.
	The current hindrance to the public's right of access is the MP filter, which is currently the only way to reach the commissioner. As Professor Colin Turpin of Clare College Cambridge observed in his standard work on the British constitution and government, the MP filter:
	"operates in an arbitrary way—some MPs rarely refer complaints to the PCA, while others do so frequently—and it is a hindrance to the ordinary citizen in need of a clear and simple remedy for grievances against the administration".
	That statement rings true today.
	Direct access to the ombudsman or equivalent officer by members of the public is allowed in most other democratic countries that have such an institution. There is direct access to the Health Service Commissioner for England and the Local Government Commissioner. The only country that I know of that still has a similar filter is France, but the Minister will, no doubt, tell me if I am wrong.
	In a debate on 19 October 1999 on a report from the Select Committee on Public Administration on the work of the PCA, there was a prevailing consensus that the requirement that complaints be filtered by MPs should be dropped in order to improve access to the commissioner. In April 2000, the Cabinet Office published a review of the Public Sector Ombudsman in England, which was led by a senior official, Mr Philip Collcutt. The Collcutt review commented that:
	"The pace of change in the modernisation of government has left behind the public sector ombudsman".
	It concluded that the MP filter should be abolished, as it could no longer be sustained in an era of joined-up government.
	Unfortunately, the review only considered direct access as an alternative to the MP filter, not as something that could be introduced in addition to that filter. A dual-track approach is the sensible, practical and realistic way to proceed because it addresses the stymie to direct access caused by the MP filter and meets the concerns of the Government—which we will no doubt hear about from the Minister—and of those MPs who wish to see the filter retained.
	The Government were not able to support my previous Bill. Their main objection was that the role of ombudsman was created explicitly on the basis that he or she should reside permanently in the other place as an officer in that place. My new Bill has been modified to address that concern. I hope that as a result it will receive support from the Minister, in contrast to the previous proposal to abolish the MP filter altogether.
	During the five years since the Collcutt review and my last Bill, I am sorry to say that the Government have demonstrated only total inertia. The Public Administration Select Committee in its third report of Session 2002–03 entitled Ombudsman Issues catalogued the lack of progress made by government, describing it as a,
	"roll-call of talk rather than action",
	and noting with disdain that,
	"despite numerous reviews and consultations and general agreement on both the need for reform and the necessary changes, the Ombudsman system has not been reformed".
	Even in their brief response to that report, the Government neither made any commitment to reform nor even mentioned the issue of direct access. In response to the far too numerous questions I have tabled over the past five year, I have learnt only that discussions are continuing and that the matters raised are under consideration.
	During her evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee in November 2003, Ann Abraham said:
	"I fundamentally believe that there is a huge amount of very valuable work that goes on by MPs, MPs' offices, MPs' surgeries in actually referring cases to us and there is nothing to stop that continuing, but I do not see why it should be an absolute requirement".
	She went on:
	"The fundamental point is . . . about accessibility and there are issues as well in joint working with colleagues in the Local Government Ombudsman scheme where the MP filter gets in the way of aligning a joint investigation and a joint report because of particular requirements that come out of that, so it is a point of principle . . . in the 21st Century that a citizen should have direct access to the Ombudsman".
	In the Parliamentary Ombudsman Annual Report 2003–04, Ann Abraham wrote:
	"Members of Parliament continue to have a key role in supporting their constituents when they have problems with public service providers. However, to reinforce the principle of easy access, I believe that citizens should also be allowed direct access to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and I will continue to press for legislative change to allow this to take place".
	This Bill provides that opportunity for legislative change. If the Bill is passed by this House, it will provide the other place with the opportunity to decide whether the time has come to allow a public right of direct access. This House will then provide the catalyst for reform ultimately to be decided upon by the democratic House of Parliament.
	Last year, a survey of Members of Parliament on the work of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman was conducted jointly by the Public Administration Select Committee and the ombudsman's office. The results of the MP survey were published in July 2004 and showed that 66 per cent of respondents favoured direct access to the parliamentary ombudsman.
	The MP survey also showed that 71 per cent of respondents said that they would favour direct communication between the ombudsman's office and the complainant. As a result, in November 2004, the commissioner took the decision to issue a copy of each final report or decision letter direct to the complainant, at the same time as writing to the referring MP. This change of practice represents a welcome procedural improvement, and demonstrates the commitment of the ombudsman's office to bring about positive change in the absence of legislation.
	The other objection of the Government to my previous Bill was that the office of the commissioner would not be able to cope with the increased workload that direct access would bring. Such concerns are outweighed by the need for direct access in the interests of justice because internal changes to procedure can readily be made to cope with an increased workload without the need for wider reform. Further reform of the ombudsman system is clearly required but that need for reform should not be used to justify denial of direct access and contact by ordinary members of the public. In her evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee in December 2004, Ann Abraham expressed concern that,
	"from our public awareness surveys and our stakeholder research . . . there are problems for access to the Ombudsman for hard to reach groups and that is a real issue for us".
	There are also times, for example around a general election and during the Summer Recess, when MPs may not be available to their constituents, leaving members of the public with no access to the ombudsman at all.
	In the absence of direct access, our ombudsman is grossly under-used. To illustrate this, I take the example of the Republic of Ireland. The ombudsman of the Irish Republic, who is not subject to a parliamentary filter and who deals with a very small population of under 4 million, received 3,075 complaints in 2003. Finland, with a population of 5.2 million, received 2,469 complaints in that year. In contrast, our ombudsman received just 1,973 new complaints in 2002–03.
	This Bill addresses the problem that complainants are cut off from direct access, and what should be a flexible and accessible remedy for complainants becomes perceived in the eyes of citizens as another bureaucratic and remote procedure. In my view, there is no good reason why that modest and simple change cannot be effected now, without having to wait for wider reforms to the ombudsman system of a more complex and far-reaching nature.
	I very much hope that the Minister will support this practical Bill and not seek to delay any further with the bureaucratic argument that the time is not right. As FM Cornford famously observed in 1908, and as I mentioned five years ago:
	"The Principle of Unripe Time is that people should not do at the moment what they think right at that moment, because the moment at which they think it right has not yet arrived".

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I am sorry to press the noble Lord, but he just cited some statistics. Is there not possibly another explanation: that the MPs have successfully dealt with the cases themselves?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am sure that exactly the same could be said of MPs of the Irish Parliament, the Dail, who, if anything, spend rather more time in their constituencies, yet, as I said, in a small country such as the Irish Republic there is a much larger number of complaints. As a resident of the Irish Republic, I should explain that I am sure that the TD in my area is as vigorous as would be any MP in this country. So that excuse holds no water, with respect.

Lord Naseby: My Lords, the noble Lord has not answered the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. In my experience, when I was in the other place, complaints were brought to us that the member of the public thought were relevant to the ombudsman, but were not. They were dealt with by the Member. Will not the noble Lord reflect that that may well be the reason why the situation is different in the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I must say, first, that person with the most experience of the problem is the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration herself. She will know rather more about the practical problems created by the lack of direct access; that is why she and her predecessors have said again and again that they should be in the same position as the equivalent ombudsmen in other democracies.
	I have not wearied the House with the figures for the rest of the world where there are MPs as active as ours, but if one looks across even to the new democracies in Europe, the parliamentary commissioners in Hungary, one of whom I know extremely well, have a far bigger caseload, even though their MPs, like those elsewhere, are just as vigorous as ours.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He makes a compelling case for the ombudsman seeking greater access. My experience of public officials over many years is that once a department gets set up, it suffers from the dreaded disease of empire-building. May there not be a little of that in this case?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am sure that the disease of empire-building extends to Whitehall as well as elsewhere. What troubles me is that, on this issue, the Government are judge in their own cause, in the sense that complaints are made against government, and if government continue to obstruct direct access and say that there must be an MP filter, that reduces the ability to call government to account for maladministration. I do not think that there is any risk of empire-building in this area. The PCA and all her predecessors, in my experience, have shown that they are wise, practical and want to help the citizen to get redress against the state by non-legalistic means.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I am sorry to press the noble Lord again, but when he is comparing the Irish statistics with those for the United Kingdom, does that take into account the fact that British Members of Parliament now have considerably more resources available to them than is the case in most European parliaments?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I have not done a detailed comparative cost/benefit analysis of the kind that the noble Lord suggests; of course not. I am simply asking the House to agree with a simple proposition. MPs may retain their right to refer cases where their constituents come to them. They can seek to deal with those complaints as they do now. The Bill will not take away the heavy caseload that they have in their surgeries but where Members of your Lordships' House, for example, or any member of the public, wish to make a complaint, they should not have to find an MP and go through the business of making the complaint through that MP. We may be able to do so, because we know how the system work, or ought to, but an ordinary member of the public who has to do that will be deterred.
	I suggest that that is one of the main reasons why our ombudsman is so underused compared with those of every other country in the world—including Hong Kong, for example. When Hong Kong abolished the direct filter, there was a substantial increase in work and, as a result, beneficial results to administration. What happens in Hong Kong, Ireland and every other democracy but France should apply to this country.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way. Lest it be thought that there is a constituency here, a trade union of former MPs who have a single mind on the issue that he has raised, let me say that my experience as a Member of Parliament was that, surprisingly frequently, matters were brought to my attention by members of the public who had not been able to persuade their Member of Parliament that the matter should be raised with the ombudsman. My noble friend's Bill would deal with that problem.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend. It occurs to me that I should perhaps have mentioned my own interest and experience. I made two complaints to the PCA—both about the Government's unnecessary secrecy. It took me weeks to find even one of my colleagues in the other place who was not too busy to be able to refer either of them. If I find it difficult, I cannot imagine how much more difficult it must be for others who are not privileged as I am.
	In spite of the vested interest that some might have felt elsewhere, we know that the majority of MPs polled say that they would be willing for the filter to go altogether, which is not what I am proposing. The time has come for change—it came a long time ago. I very much hope that the House, the Government and, in due course, the other place, which must make the ultimate decision, will support the Bill in the interests of accountable parliamentary government, good administration and the effective protection of the citizen.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him a question. I think he said that he was proposing to retain the MP filter. In what sense is it a filter if it can be bypassed?

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, perhaps "filter" was the wrong way to put it. I want to retain the procedure by which the MP can make a direct reference from his constituency. I do that purely pragmatically because it is an easier way to persuade Members of Parliament than to take away their exclusive rights.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Lester of Herne Hill.)

Lord Borrie: My Lords, I rise to support the Bill. Not for the first time, the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, is pursuing and properly persisting in a measure to enhance active citizenship and human rights and to improve democratic procedures. I have one small interest to declare, in that I once headed a non-ministerial government department, the Office of Fair Trading, which was subject two or three times to investigation—via a Member of Parliament, of course—by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.
	In 1967, the government of the day and, in particular, Mr Richard Crossman, then Lord President of the Council, was keen to introduce into our constitution the novelty of a parliamentary commissioner with the authority and resources to investigate thoroughly complaints of maladministration against government departments. But the government of the day were very cautious about introducing a concept that had originated in Scandinavia. Hence, they avoided the use of the foreign-sounding word, "ombudsman". Because the only Commonwealth country that had introduced such a mechanism—namely, New Zealand—had a population of less than one tenth of that of the United Kingdom, they were anxious that our new institution might be overwhelmed by cases if people could go direct to the commissioner, without any MP filter. In any case, it was thought that the direct route from the public to the commissioner would seem to undermine the role of a Member of Parliament acting on behalf and looking after the interests of his constituent.
	After nearly 40 years' experience, we know that the foreign-sounding word "ombudsman" has become part of our language and that the Parliamentary Commissioner has not been overwhelmed with work, although certainly that work has been sufficient to justify the institution's existence.
	MPs are justifiably proud of their role in pursuing constituents' problems, but the power and resource of the ombudsman to investigate closely that minority of constituents' complaints that justify ombudsman intervention in no way undermines the Member of Parliament's constitutional role. Today there is no need for the MP route to be the exclusive way to access the ombudsman's powers.
	Over the intervening years since the 1960s, the Parliamentary Commissioner has been a model for investigative machinery elsewhere in the public sector—local government, the health service and the police—and across considerable areas of the private sector. The latest is the provision in the Government's current Consumer Credit Bill, now before the other place, to extend the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Ombudsman—I give that particular example in view of the Minister who will make the winding-up speech. That ombudsman is the biggest and best resourced of all the present ombudsman schemes, so far as I know, and the key example of the Government's advocacy of alternative dispute resolution schemes, giving people an opportunity to seek a resolution of their disputes and conflicts by alternative possibilities. Not only the Government but also the Lord Chief Justice have espoused alternative dispute resolution as a more lean and efficient alternative to the ordinary courts for dispute settlement.
	The present Parliamentary Commissioner, the redoubtable Ann Abraham, was previously the Legal Services Ombudsman, to whom direct access is available. We know from the quotations referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that she would welcome the wider availability of her services as Parliamentary Commissioner. I regret that the noble Lord—who has now left the Chamber—in the middle of the debate—suggested that there was some kind of empire-building on behalf of Ann Abraham or previous holders of that office. I do not think that that is a fair comment.
	A significant part of a Member of Parliament's work, especially since 1945 and the advent of the welfare state, has been the resolution of constituents' problems. MPs can greatly facilitate the resolution of problems involving government departments and agencies. It is true that often the constituent is concerned with other problems—common ones, such as health, benefits and the environment—that can be resolved only by local authorities and regulatory bodies rather than government departments. Nevertheless I believe, as must those former MPs who sought to intervene in this debate, that close contact with, and close knowledge of, the problems of individual constituents across all areas informs MPs' contributions to larger debates in the other place on legislation and otherwise.
	If the Bill gets further than today's proceedings, as I hope it will, it is most important that the public will be able to go direct to the Parliamentary Commissioner as an alternative to going through an MP. None the less, I hope that MPs will be kept fully in touch and contribute their own particular assistance to the resolution of constituents' concerns.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I rise very briefly as I had not intended to intervene in the debate. I support the noble Lord's Bill; it is a very good one. I intervened simply because I was looking for a little Friday-morning sport in the Chamber and I thought that it would be interesting—

Lord Triesman: Order, my Lords. It may be appropriate for the noble Lord to speak during the gap but we ought probably to go through the speakers' list as it is until that point.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I wish to speak very briefly to support the reform proposed in the Bill; namely, to gain direct access for complainants to the Parliamentary Commissioner. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Lester on persisting with the issue. I do not speak as an expert on how the Parliamentary Ombudsman carries out her duties, although I have an interest in the issues as a former member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and a former colleague of "the redoubtable Ann Abraham", as the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, described her, on that body.
	Other noble Lords present know far more about the precise role of the Parliamentary Ombudsman than I do, but I know considerably more about how direct access to the Health Service Commissioner for England works. I am well acquainted with that work from my previous life at the King's Fund and, before that, as chairman of Camden and Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust, against which occasional complaints were brought. Irritating though it was to be the chairman or member of the board of a body against whom such complaints were brought, in the case of the Health Service Commissioner, direct access was so obviously necessary, so beneficial and so obviously right, although often irritating to us, that I find it hard to believe that the same should not apply to the Parliamentary Commissioner.
	My noble friend Lord Lester has already mentioned the 2000 Collcutt review, which argued that the MP filter could not be sustained, and the MPs' survey in the work conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee and the Parliamentary Ombudsman in 2004. As he also mentioned, two-thirds were in favour of removing the MP filter, so one might argue that it seems obvious that it should go.
	However, let me add a further argument, from my knowledge of how the process can work with the Health Service Commissioner. In both my previous roles, at the King's Fund and at Camden and Islington, I saw a considerable amount of the Health Service Commissioner. I also dealt frequently with local MPs, who were wonderful at taking up cudgels on behalf of their constituents in many cases.
	However, on two occasions in that period I was involved with cases that went to the Health Service Ombudsman in which I am not wholly convinced that, had an MP filter been in place, the complainants would have felt comfortable about going to an MP's surgery to tell the story. That is not to say that the MPs would not be sympathetic and helpful; it is, however, to say that people from deprived backgrounds, younger people, people from ethnic minorities and others can find the whole business of going to an MP's surgery to discuss the most intimate details of their lives disconcerting at best and plain frightening at worst. When discussing, say, matters such as double incontinence poorly handled or issues related to frailty and mental illness in an ethnic minority family, again poorly handled by the service, they feel far more comfortable going to the ombudsman directly, where those who listen and deal with the complaints are experienced and trained in precisely those areas and not likely to be disturbed or feel squeamish by what they are told.
	Indeed, the public awareness research of Ann Abraham, the ombudsman, shows exactly the same thing as my anecdotal experience suggests: unskilled and unemployed people, younger people, and people from minority backgrounds find it more difficult and demanding to approach their MP on these issues. Nobody is suggesting that MPs should not be able to continue to refer difficult cases to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, but surely that does not need to be the only route for complaints. Direct access to the Health Service Commissioner is long established and complaints are dealt with relatively easily and speedily. NHS bodies, irritated though they may be, tend to react and change when they are tackled by the Health Service Commissioner.
	Can there really be any argument in favour of retaining the MP filter for the Parliamentary Commissioner, when direct access works so well elsewhere? I cannot believe that there is, and I strongly support the Bill.

Baroness D'Souza: My Lords, I support the Bill. I wish to speak briefly on the experience of the Office of the Commissioner for Administrative Complaints (COMAC), or the ombudsman, in Hong Kong. Incidentally, according to my Nordic friends, apparently the present politically correct term is not ombudsman but "ombuds". As noble Lords will already know, the law in Hong Kong was changed in 1994 to allow, among other amendments, direct public access to the commissioner. The purpose and the function of that amendment was to bring COMAC closer to the people. The commissioner argued that there was a barrier between his office and the people he served.
	The fact that, previously, all complaints had to be channelled through the Legislative Council enforced the complainant to tell his or her story twice, which was not therefore seen as effective communication. The previous system also introduced unnecessary delays. It was thought that that most probably accounted for the relatively low level of complaints in the first five years of the office's operation. Direct public access obviates those difficulties and keeps the commissioner informed on the actual grievances, and the expectations of government and statutory services.
	The sharp increase in inquiries and complaints that were received following the enactment of this amendment fully justified the commissioner's concerns. In the year before enactment of the amendment, the number of inquiries received was 3,348 and the number of complaints was 1,211. In the following year, the respective figures were 6,493 and 2,784. The complaints figure represents a 15-fold increase when compared to the five-year average before direct access was brought in. Although the jurisdiction of the commissioner was extended in 1994 to include six other major statutory bodies, the significant increase in complaints received was believed to be due to direct public access.
	A closer look at the breakdown of the figures shows that the complaints on abuse of power over the same period increased from seven to 122; those on errors or wrong decisions by government bodies increased from 28 to 544; and those on a failure to follow procedures increased from 14 in 1994 to 65 in 1995. Although not all of the complaints were ultimately substantiated, the figures illustrate the increased use made of the commissioner's office by the public following the direct-access amendment.
	I recently returned from a conference in Peru which examined the results of a newly-introduced access-to-information law in the region. It included a revealing discussion on the kinds of obstacles that prevented people from using the law, especially in the more rural areas. These included the cost of employing a lawyer—or someone at least who could write—which was a major deterrent in some of the countries concerned. Unacceptable delays in dealing with complaints were also cited as a barrier.
	Those countries where direct public access to the local information officer occurred were by far the most efficient in processing legitimate complaints. Another example of a successful access-to-information scheme—this time in Bulgaria, run by the local Transparency International office—was the provision of an easily readable map of the local government office showing where exactly the relevant offices were and how to reach them. That was an inspired idea because it broke through people's long-held fear of officialdom and bureaucracy.
	Of course, we are not dealing here with freedom of information laws, but certainly access to information may well become an issue for the Parliamentary Commissioner. I give these examples to underline the value of direct access by the public to any new laws that make for greater transparency of the parliamentary process and closer and more productive communication with the electorate.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I wish briefly to intervene to support the Bill, which is important. The reality is that, as a Member of Parliament, one was often approached by constituents to raise issues with the ombudsmen: very often those constituents had, for example, mental or health difficulties. One would try to resolve such cases oneself. I remember many cases that I was able to sort out at a local level where the ombudsman was being asked to intervene unnecessarily. From a constituent point of view, that was far more satisfactory because there was an earlier resolution to the problem.
	Thankfully, the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, does not interfere with that right. A Member of Parliament can still intervene. However, there are times when MPs find it very difficult to say "No" and may not be prepared to pass something on. If there is what I would call a "residual right" for an individual constituent to go direct to the ombudsman, that would be helpful in certain circumstances.
	There are also times when, even with the substantially increased resources available to elected Members of Parliament, they simply cannot carry out the detailed investigation that is necessary to resolve a particular problem. In those circumstances, it can be helpful to have someone to whom you can go in the knowledge that while there might be a long procedure, it will lead to a full investigation and establishment of the truth.
	Finally, perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that if he had trouble finding someone among his colleagues to raise his particular concerns, he should have come to see me when I was down the other end. I can assure him that we were following with great interest many of the issues that he raised. I am sure that he would have found many Labour Members who would have taken on his work.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am delighted to reply to this debate on behalf of my party. I have particular pleasure in doing so because I am currently the vice-chairman of the council of Justice, which I should declare as an interest. It was a report published by Justice in 1961, known as the Wyatt report—named after Sir John Wyatt, who wrote it with the support of a high-powered advisory committee—that started the debate which led to the adoption of the ombudsman system under the original Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967.
	Since then, as the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, pointed out, ombudsmen have multiplied exponentially. We have ombudsmen for the National Health Service, for local government, for pensions, for financial services, for legal services and so on. We are soon to have an ombudsman for judicial appointments. There are, of course, also many ombudsmen in the private sector who are not regulating on behalf of the Government, but regulating, for example, on behalf of a consortium of banks or building societies.
	Not one of those ombudsmen, with the exception of the original one—the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—requires the intervention of a Member of Parliament to raise a complaint. The Wyatt report recommended that access to the PCA should be through MPs and Peers for the first five years of its operation, after which consideration should be given to extending powers to enable the PCA to receive complaints direct from members of the public. As we all know, Peers were never given the right to refer cases to the PCA, which was right. No further consideration was given, as suggested by Wyatt.
	The reason for the restriction proposal in the Wyatt report was, first, that it was thought that the number of complaints might be excessive. Especially now that we have experience of many ombudsmen to whom there is unrestricted access, that seems to be no longer a justifiable worry. Secondly, there was a possible conflict with the role of Members of Parliament in taking up complaints on behalf of their constituents. In practice, if the Bill is enacted, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, pointed out, it is highly probably that most complaints that eventually end up with the PCA will be sent originally to MPs. However, there is no need for the MP to act as a negative filter because he can prevent a justifiable complaint being passed on.
	In 1977, Justice revisited the issue and published another report, Our Fettered Ombudsman, which sets out the problem very accurately and concisely. It states:
	"The Parliamentary Commissioner in the United Kingdom is, by contrast, far from accessible. If an individual is well informed enough to think of writing to him, the Parliamentary Commissioner will write back telling him to take his case to a Member of Parliament. If he is sufficiently determined to do this, the Member of Parliament can nevertheless decline to forward his case to the Parliamentary Commissioner. In this event, the individual can go to another Member but by this time he may well be so discouraged by the process that he gives up. It is from the point of view of the citizen, far from satisfactory that he has to depend on the Member's judgment as to whether or not his complaint is considered by the Parliamentary Commissioner.
	"The complicated procedure for access to the Parliamentary Commissioner probably means that articulate and better informed people are more likely to use the Parliamentary Commissioner than are the less articulate or well informed . . . This poorly informed section of the population is also the section in which most under-privileged people are to be found".
	The report continues by saying:
	"We believe that the most important consideration is that as many as possible of bona fide grievances against government departments should be impartially investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner. For this to happen we are convinced that there must be provision for direct access to the Commissioner".
	Some 28 years after that follow-up report was published, still nothing has been done to deal with those arguments. The arguments in favour of direct access are as strong as ever and it is my belief that it is now time to go for direct access. Of course the PCA will continue to report to a Select Committee of the House of Commons. In fact, one important change that has been observed since 1977 is that the number of complaints to individual MPs is far greater than it was then. For many MPs the change may be a cause of relief rather than concern if a few complaints are diverted away from them.
	As I have said, I suspect that the great majority of complaints will go to the MP first and will then be forwarded to the PCA, but given what I would like to describe as the "ombudsexplosion", surely there can be no justification for saying that complaints made to the PCA, alone among the multiple ombudsmen that we now have, should go exclusively through Members of Parliament.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, it is a pleasure to find myself once again responding to a debate of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in his assiduous pursuit of various Private Members' Bills and so forth. As he said himself, this proposal has been introduced before in a slightly different form. The noble Lord made it clear that the new form of this Bill is the provision of dual access rather than simply the abolition of the filter.
	But, as the exchange between the noble Lord and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has illustrated, it is not quite accurate to say that this Bill would not abolish the MP filter. What it would mean is that MPs would no longer act as a filter. It is no good having in place a filter if there is an enormous space beside it for the water to flow through. The filter will no longer have any effect. In that sense the Bill would do away with the filter, although it does allow complaints to go to the ombudsman via an MP as well as directly.
	I noted with interest that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, indicated what a fundamental change this would be. Sometimes it is presented as quite a minor change. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has just said that even if the Bill were carried, most complaints would still go through MPs. I am not at all sure about that. While initially that would be the case because habits take time to change, I do not think that it would be so for all that long. After a few years most complaints would be made directly to the ombudsman, although no doubt some would be referred to the MP either before or after they had been to the ombudsman.
	The MP is often the last resort for complaints. It is the experience of most of us who have served in another place that many of the people who turn up at one's surgery or who write have already tried other avenues to achieve what they want. They have lodged complaints about their social security to the relevant department, they have been through all the procedures and the complaint has been looked at, but they are still turned down and they do not know what else to do. At that point they come to their MP. Sometimes they have already been to the local citizens advice bureau while on other occasions I have referred complainants to it. Citizens advice bureaux provide helpful mechanisms for dealing with some cases.
	However, making ineffective the filter is a more fundamental change than may be realised. I believe that I am right that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, described it as an alternative form of dispute resolution; that is, it would provide an alternative to the courts. That shows great restraint and high-mindedness on the part of the lawyers among us, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Goodhart, who earn a certain proportion of their living in the courts, to be so keen on a method of bypassing them by using this alternative form of dispute resolution.
	As has already been said, the idea behind the ombudsman when it was first set up was to strengthen the arm of MPs, and that is exactly what it did. For a while I served on the Select Committee on Public Administration overseeing the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner. The committee took up some of the cases where the then Parliamentary Commissioner felt that the answers were unsatisfactory. We were able to call Ministers and civil servants before the committee to pursue why they had not agreed with the ombudsman. In that sense the work of the Select Committee was strengthened.
	I also happened to be serving on the committee in 1977, at which point the ombudsman had been operating for 10 years. We then reviewed the whole matter and thought through how the ombudsman had been set up. At the time we recommended the continuation of the MP filter. The other major issue was the question of whether the ombudsman should have powers of enforcement as opposed merely to recommend. We thought it best that he should remain able to make recommendations rather than have a power of enforcement over government departments, which I still think is right. Some ombudsmen around the world do have the power to force their governments to do things, but that is not the case here and I do not think it should be.
	The argument which persuaded us at the time was that the filter kept MPs in the loop by providing them, as it were, with an additional arm. When a constituent comes to see an MP with a complaint, sometimes it can be sorted out locally with the local social security office or other department, while sometimes the matter can be taken up with Ministers. MPs have various routes open to them. On occasion an MP can also explain to his constituent why the law that he has fallen foul of is as it is. Sometimes the constituent is satisfied with that and appreciates the reason why things have not gone exactly as they would have wished.
	The whole system of making complaints to Members of Parliament through surgeries, correspondence and so forth is a vital method of monitoring what is happening. That is how one first became aware, for example, that the Child Support Agency was not working very well. The agency is a wonderful concept, but in my later years in another place it became quite clear that the details of how it was supposed to function were not working properly. That was made absolutely obvious through individual complaints heard in the surgery and in correspondence. Many other examples could be cited, although perhaps less striking.
	The principal advantage to MPs of the work of the PCA is that he can look at all the bits of paper. His or her staff can go into the government department concerned and look at the case files and so forth in a way that MPs cannot. Sometimes those investigations uncover incidents of maladministration and help to get them put right.
	Of course, the Freedom of Information Act—which is much in our minds at the moment—should make that aspect of the commissioner's work less necessary. I say "should" because it is not yet clear whether or not it will, but it should make it less necessary.
	We were concerned some 25 or 27 years ago that MPs should not be short-circuited but should remain in the loop. That does not mean to say—although we did not take this view at the time—that a citizen might, for example, be given the power to go directly to the ombudsman if having raised a matter with an MP he or she is still not satisfied with whatever has happened. If the MP refused to send the complaint to the ombudsman, the individual might then be able to do so directly. This would be a kind of half-way house, as it were, and avoid opening up a complete alternative to the MP filter. I do not want to press that idea very hard, but it is a possibility.
	One has to realise that over the life of the Parliamentary Commissioner many other ombudsmen have been established, both in the public sector and, to a certain degree, in different aspects of the private sector. There has been a huge increase in work of this kind and in the number of people prepared to complain. People no longer accept things in the way they used to a few decades ago.
	Another measure of that change is the increase in the number of letters that are written to MPs, Members of the Government and so on. I read in one of the reports of the Public Administration Select Committee that the Prime Minister now receives half a million letters a year. That is astonishing. How on earth they can be dealt with satisfactorily is difficult to see. Some of them, of course, will be individual complaint cases—people complaining about their treatment—and writing to the Prime Minister may or may not be an effective way of getting the matter sorted out. I have my doubts because, as one of half a million letters, it must be very difficult to sort out. So it is against a background of a large increase in complaints, a greater willingness to complain and a lesser willingness to accept complaints that we have to look at these issues.
	I hope that today's debate will draw out the Government's view on this issue. Their position seemed clear three years ago when Christopher Leslie, replying on behalf of the Government, stated:
	"the time has now come to have direct access for individuals to the ombudsman and the filter of having to require Members of Parliament sign off is anachronistic and should be removed".
	Presumably that is still the Government's position.
	It became clear at the beginning of the debate that the Government have been hanging about on this issue and that other, possibly wider, reforms of the ombudsman and "ombudspeople"—it is not only the PCA that we are concerned about—have been delayed. The Government's view of what they will do, and when, is not at all clear. Perhaps it will become clear when the Minister replies.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I always enjoy the responses of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, to questions and debates. I was not sure at the end of his contribution where the Conservative Party sits on this issue, but perhaps that is a tease for another day.
	I shall make plain from the start that the Government do not support the Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill. That is not to say that we do not recognise that this is an important issue. The debate today has demonstrated its relevance.
	Before I get to the body of what I want to say, I should explain that the whole issue of complaints and complaint resolution has long fascinated me. I guess it probably comes from my local government experience. When I first became a councillor in the early 1980s, people— certainly on my side of the political divide—often used to see complaints from members of the public as a bit of a pain. I formulated a different view over my time as an elected member and took a rather more positive approach. I believe that inside every complaint there is a resolution of a difficulty and an answer perhaps—or certainly some very important questions—to why a particular service or facility is not working as it should.
	Within our organisation we tried to foster a more positive approach, and that is the way in which I approach this issue as a whole. We should see complaints positively because they can tell us a great deal about the way in which public services operate. So, in a sense, I cannot see where the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is coming from. He sees the Government's reaction as being defensive. I do not think it is and I shall explain why as I go along.
	The Government believe that Members of Parliament play an important role in channelling complaints through to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. I certainly recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has been a very keen advocate of ombudsman reform and, in particular, has championed the removal of the MP filter in the past to allow complainants to have direct access to the Parliamentary Commissioner. The noble Lord has now amended his position slightly to create an MP by-pass through his proposals in the Bill.
	In preparing for the debate I obviously consulted with interest the noble Lord's previous Private Member's Bill on this subject. It is very clear that the noble Lord has strongly held and well developed views supporting the removal of the filter, which would be the effect of his proposition.
	I do not share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, that after removing the filter there would still be a strong residual use of MPs. I rather suspect that, over time, use of the MP route may well fade away.
	It has to be recognised that, in opposition to what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, some honourable Members in another place have equally strongly held views about the value of their role in forwarding complaints to the ombudsman and the responsibilities that they exercise under the 1967 legislation. We were given one or two examples of that during interventions in the course of the debate. Many Members of another place believe that their role provides them with a valuable and necessary insight—the kind of insight that I certainly experienced—into the problems and concerns that their constituents experience in their day-to-day dealings with departments, agencies and other public bodies.
	The noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred to the recent survey of Members in another place conducted by the Parliamentary Ombudsman through the Public Administration Select Committee. That survey rather bears that out. When asked whether in the absence of the removal of the MP filter they favoured direct communication between the ombudsman and the complainant once the initial referral had been made, 71 per cent of respondents said that they would wish to continue to be copied into the correspondence. In other words, they wanted to have continuing contact, information and feedback on the way in which the complaint was working its way through the process and learning from it.
	Certainly while there was support from some who responded to the survey for the removal of the MP filter, there were also some who wanted very strongly to retain it. Of course, we do not know the views of the two-thirds of Members of another place who did not reply to the questionnaire. Only 207 respondents participated in the survey.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, is it not at least possible that among the two-thirds there are a significant number of MPs who do not take their duties in this respect seriously and who sometimes fail to pass on to the PCA perfectly legitimate complaints?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I certainly consider that a possibility, but probably the noble Lord would share with me the general view that MPs are really rather good at dealing with complaints. After all, as we have heard today, they have had rather a lot of practice. In my dealings with MPs of all parties, I have found that they are very diligent in this process and take it very seriously. They are not shy of using their wits to make good use of cases to argue for a political view that they hold.
	We take the view that the survey is incomplete, although one could argue that it is representative. So we cannot accurately judge what Members in another place think because of the incomplete nature of the survey.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, will the Government carry out a complete survey so that they find out the actual position? Secondly, what do they think of the interesting idea of the noble Lord, Lord Cope, whereby one would go first to one's MP, give the MP four weeks so that the filter operated, and if he or she did not refer, then the complaint could be made directly? What is the Government's position on that halfway house, or any other idea to deal with the scandal of the present situation?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to all Members of your Lordships' House who have come up with ideas. I am sure that both those are worthy of further consideration. I shall be saying something about the way in which we are approaching the subject, and those matters may well be considered as part of that process.
	We are aware that the Parliamentary Ombudsman would like to see the MP filter removed, but that is just one element of a number of reforms that the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Health Service Commissioner for England and the Local Government Ombudsman have asked the Government to consider to enable them to work together more closely to provide a better and more customer-focused service to complainants.
	The Government fully support these ideals but believe that the proposals for reform and the practical consequences need to be carefully considered in the round and not taken forward, as the Bill suggests, on a piecemeal basis.
	The ombudsman services are going through a period of change, and the Government have made it clear that they are committed to working with ombudsmen to take forward reforms which will enable closer working between the main public sector ombudsmen and facilitate an improved and more modern service for complainants.
	Given the constraints on parliamentary time and the many competing priorities for legislation, the Government intend to focus their efforts on identifying what can be done within existing statutory arrangements to bring about some reforms to remove barriers to closer working between the main public sector ombudsmen.
	The Government are currently working closely with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Health Service Commissioner for England, Ann Abraham, and the chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England, Tony Redmond, with a view to taking forward detailed work to remove a number of legislative constraints on effective joint working by means of a regulatory reform order.
	The regulatory reform order route could be used to remove existing legislative barriers which prevent information-sharing and consultation, joint investigations and the issuing of joint reports. That would greatly assist the public sector ombudsmen in their ability to offer a more joined-up service to the public and improve the quality of response to complaints.
	We believe that the regulatory reform order route represents the best and the quickest way to bring about the desired changes. The Government are working closely with the public sector ombudsmen on the detail of the consultation document and the draft order, both of which will be published in due course.
	I have found this a useful and insightful short debate.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, will my noble friend help me a little? In deciding upon the response of the Government in the brief that has been given to my noble friend, was the Parliamentary Commissioner consulted about the position of her department?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my understanding is that the commissioner was consulted. We are well aware of her rather public view that further consideration should be given to removing the MP filter.
	A number of useful points have come up during the course of the debate; I agree with some of them but not with others. I did not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, that MPs are harder to use as a means of accessing the ombudsman service. I think that when most members of the public meet their MP—and most MPs hold regular surgeries—they find them very useful in helping to forward complaints and ensuring that the process can be properly used.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, why, then, does the Parliamentary Ombudsman's own research show that those particular groupings find it more difficult to access their MPs?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, perhaps the research does show that. However, my point is that most people find MPs quite useful and, when they approach them, they find them able to access the ombudsman service. There is a degree of mystique about the way in which ombudsmen work and that may be one of the issues on which we should focus.
	When I first came across the service, I thought that it was rather remote and centralised, whereas at least the MP is local and reasonably accessible and can be made use of in processing the complaint or difficulty. Other Members of your Lordships' House have given rather good voice to that and suggested that the access for MPs is valued. I have listened with great care to what my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said because he, in particular, is a very active user of complaints to focus on political issues. I am sure that we can all think of many examples from our wider political experience.
	The noble Lord, Lord Cope, also gave useful examples of the helpful role of Members of Parliament. When he was a Member of Parliament, I know that he was very busy, active, helpful and assiduous. We should be looking at ways of further enhancing and developing that role. I am one of those who thinks that the resources that MPs now have to do that work are very valuable. Ultimately, they probably help improve the quality of public service, because that is where we want to direct our efforts. I am sure that that is the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has brought forward his Bill. But at the end of the day, it is a not a Bill that we feel able to support.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this brief but very important debate. Your Lordships come from a very wide range of backgrounds, but all those who have spoken have direct experience of public life in many different forms. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Cope, will mind my saying, as a lawyer to an accountant—and even accountants can be high-minded, as well as lawyers—that I found his contribution equivocal and ambiguous. The Minister was correct in saying that he did not really understand the Official Opposition's position. I find their position very strange, since you would have thought that the Official Opposition, at least, would want to stop the Government being able to shield themselves unnecessarily from complaints of maladministration, but there it is.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, the noble Lord may not have appreciated the fact that we do not anticipate being in opposition for very long.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I do not share that anticipation. That is an example of hope and faith over practical experience.
	I shall not go through the various speeches, but I should like to make one or two points. No one suggests that the role of the MP is not absolutely crucial. No one suggests that MPs should not be closely involved in the work of the PCA and copied into complaints that are made, whether directly or through an MP. No one suggests that our MPs should not retain very close links with their constituents.
	However, the Minister has failed to deal with the evidence and arguments that have been given in this debate and beyond. There is no evidence I am aware of from other parliamentary democracies, including New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Ireland—and Hong Kong, as a sort of parliamentary democracy, on the road to being a better one—that the MPs in those jurisdictions are bypassed in a way that damages their relationship with their constituents. There is no evidence that any ombudsperson in any jurisdiction complains of overload as a result of direct access. The evidence that we have from the incomplete survey of Members of the other place is that, in the 27 years since the noble Lord, Lord Cope, was concerned directly with the matter, attitudes have changed. No doubt, the overload of MPs has made them perhaps more sympathetic to the idea of giving the public direct access.
	Of all the ideas that were expressed in the debate, the one that intrigued me most was that put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Cope, although he did not put it forward with great enthusiasm. It was the idea of the halfway house. If the Bill is given a Second Reading, it could be amended, by way of a compromise, so that—to recall the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern—one would retain the filter in the real sense, and one would still have to go to one's MP for, let us say, four weeks, or whatever reasonable time was decided. Then, if the MP had not dealt with the matter, simply through inaction or a refusal to refer it, the individual would then have the right, having exhausted that MP remedy, to take the complaint directly. That would be a way of ensuring that the concern of MPs to remain kept in the loop would be addressed. But that matter could be dealt with in Committee. If the noble Lord, Lord Cope, or any other Member of the House, wished to put down an amendment to that effect, I certainly would be sympathetic to it.
	We have heard that the Government are not willing to legislate at all. If that is the case, the filter will remain. It cannot be dealt with administratively. The filter will remain as an absolute bar. If the Government are not willing to legislate at all, what are we to do? I suggest that we should take the Bill through its stages—and, if necessary, amend it—as a catalyst to enable the other House to decide the matter as it should. For those reasons, I hope that this Bill will be read a second time.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Child Benefit Bill

Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 13 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I can be brief, as I believe that the order does not contain anything particularly difficult or contentious. The Extradition Act 2003 received Royal Assent on 20 November 2003. It underwent intense scrutiny in your Lordships' House and in another place, and I hope that we can avoid going over the arguments of principle today.
	We are concerned here with the further secondary legislation required to amend the Extradition Act 2003 (Designation of Part 1 Territories) Order 2003 and Extradition Act 2003 (Designation of Part 2 Territories) Order 2003. This is in order to include additional member states that did not implement the framework decision on the European arrest warrant when it first came into force, but which have now done so.
	The order thus amends the order that designated those member states as category 2 countries and re-designates them as category 1 countries. Only then can we act on European arrest warrants received from those countries. As your Lordships can see, the order mentions only five countries, rather than the six that might be expected. The five countries have confirmed that they have now implemented the necessary legislation to allow them to operate the European arrest warrant.
	The only member state yet to implement the framework decision is Italy. I understand that its domestic legislation is still going through its parliamentary process and that it is, at present, unable to confirm when that process might be completed.
	As noble Lords can see, the order contains all the remaining countries that acceded to the EU in May last year. There have been concerns in various quarters that those new member states may not have judicial systems that can support the simplified extradition procedure. There is no evidence to support such concerns. All the new member states are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, and we have had extradition relations with them under the European Convention on Extradition. In any event, the European Commission has provided for a three-year transitional period in which it can suspend the operation of the framework decision in any of those states.
	The United Kingdom has been operating the European arrest warrant since 1 January 2004, and I am pleased to be able to report that the new procedure is working well. Between the introduction of the European arrest warrant procedure in January last year and the end of January this year, 49 people have been arrested in the UK on European arrest warrants issued by other member states, and 32 people have been arrested on European arrest warrants issued by the United Kingdom. We have surrendered 25 requested people to other member states, and 22 people have been returned to the UK under the new procedure.
	On average, subjects of straightforward EAW requests are extradited just over one month after the receipt of the EAW. For example, a person wanted in relation to drug-trafficking offences that included the trafficking of over 120 kilos of synthetic drugs was surrendered to the Netherlands only 13 days after the receipt of a Dutch European arrest warrant. We are also getting people returned to the UK in record time. An individual who failed to appear at Crown Court in October last year was returned in December, only 15 days after his arrest in Spain. It was an important case. The individual was wanted to face charges of conspiracy to supply controlled drugs; failure to surrender to custody; breach of a previous court order; threats to kill; and two offences of affray. He was found guilty in his absence and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the judge who sentenced him on 15 October. Inquiries to trace the subject resulted in the issue of the European arrest warrant, and he was arrested in Spain on 17 November and extradited to the United Kingdom on 2 December 2004. That illustrates, as, I think, noble Lords will agree, that the EAW is proving to be a valuable tool in ensuring that fugitives do not evade justice.
	Concerns have properly been raised about the rights of fugitives who are the subject of an EAW. I would like to point out that our courts are not simply rubber-stamping warrants issued by other member states and surrendering individuals to those states without offering them proper safeguards. To date, six EAWs have been refused by the courts. The reasons for refusal have varied, but they included concerns that insufficient information was contained in the warrant or that the conduct listed in the warrant did not meet the definition of an extradition offence under our national law—the Extradition Act 2003—and reasons of double jeopardy.
	I have spoken at length about the chief purpose of the order and will now offer a brief explanation of the remainder of its contents. The order adds a provision designating the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, to reflect the terms of the Agreement between the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders. That means that any request for provisional arrest of a fugitive made by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region does not have to include prima facie evidence. That is in line with the provisions in the agreement relating to provisional arrest. However, prima facie evidence must be provided before extradition can go ahead, and the time limit for the receipt of papers from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region following any provisional arrest will be 60 days.
	The order also amends the original order to apply the relevant time limits for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. It corrects the existing time limits for Chile, Panama and Uruguay in relation to provisional arrest requests in the earlier order. These relate to the time limit within which relevant documents must be received by the judge when a person is arrested under a provisional warrant and were erroneously listed in the original order. The time limits are derived from the bilateral treaties between the United Kingdom and those states.
	I invite your Lordships to approve the order. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 13 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, Article 2 is, in effect, the automatic consequence of the implementation of the European arrest warrant by the states involved, and we have no objection to that.
	Article 3 designates Hong Kong for the purposes of Sections 71(4) and 73(5) of the Extradition Act 2003. I have looked at the extradition agreement with Hong Kong and agree that the order reflects the terms of that agreement. Sections 71(4) and 73(5) deal with the evidence or information that is needed for the issue of the arrest warrant. There is no designation under the much more important power of designation under Section 84(7), which would exclude the need for evidence to show a case to answer before extradition can be ordered. The need for such evidence is provided for by Article 7 of the agreement, which remains in force.
	Since the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the Hong Kong courts have shown a considerable degree of independence and impartiality and we have no objection to Article 3 of the order. Article 4 deals with time limits for the delivery of documents after an arrest; the times are perhaps surprisingly long, in the days when we no longer rely on sailing ships, but I will not press that matter any further.
	Therefore, we do not oppose the order, but I cannot refrain from pointing out that this is a missed opportunity to use the order to revoke the designation of the United States under Section 84(7), in the order made in December 2003. The fact that there is no designation of Hong Kong under Section 84(7) highlights the inexcusable decision of the Government to designate the USA under that power. By the designation of the USA under Section 84(7), the Government have deprived those whose extradition to the USA is sought of the right to have evidence against them tested in a UK court before they can be extradited. That is a right to which they are in fact entitled under the extradition treaty ratified in 1976 and still in force. They will be deprived of that right by the new treaty, but that treaty is not yet in force. Indeed, it is being lobbied against in the USA by the American Civil Liberties Union and by Irish-American groups such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians. As a result of the order made in December 2003, the United States, and the United States Senate in particular, now has no incentive to ratify it.
	The merits of the new treaty with the USA are themselves very open to question, but it is surely beyond doubt that the rights under the existing treaty should not be withdrawn until the new treaty is ratified and in force. What has happened also strengthens the case made in debate yesterday in your Lordships' House in a very different context for parliamentary scrutiny of draft treaties and parliamentary involvement in the ratification process.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I take it that the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, agrees with the order, and I take it that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, does too. He raised an issue that is not in front of us today. I have no intention of rehearsing that argument again; we know that there is a clear difference between us, although I respect the noble Lord's use of parliamentary time to raise the issue again. We take a different view, and I do not believe that it is appropriate today to reopen that debate.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Private Security Industry Act 2001 (Amendments to Schedule 2) Order 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 17 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this amendment seeks to close a loophole in the Private Security Industry Act 2001, whereby a company or individual in the business of wheel-clamping can sidestep the regulations simply by either blocking in a vehicle or immediately towing it away, without first bothering to clamp it, and still charge a fee for release or return.
	The Private Security Industry Act 2001 was passed to introduce regulation and establish a regulatory body—the Security Industry Authority—to enable the removal from the various sectors of the private security industry, of any criminal element who may have previously sought to use their position to pursue criminal activities, or who by the nature of previous conviction may be a threat to the public in certain roles. The industry itself has broadly welcomed the introduction of regulation, and has been campaigning for it for a number of years. It views it positively and considers it as a tool for increasing police and public confidence.
	The Act designates those sectors within the private security industry that are currently subject to regulation by the authority as door supervisors; wheel-clampers on private land; security guards, including dog handlers; cash-in-transit and personal protection guards; keyholders; private investigators, and security consultants.
	As the work of the authority progressed, it quickly became apparent that the more reputable wheel-clamping companies considered the absence of any regulatory requirement on those who towed or blocked vehicles to be a significant omission and error. It was felt that those who would be unable or unwilling to meet the criteria that regulation demanded of a wheel-clamper would simply go straight to towing or blocking to continue to maintain their income. It is no secret that wheel-clampers are generally held in low esteem by members of the public. Not closing this loophole would allow the actual and perceived criminality, intimidation and extortion to continue unchecked. Unsurprisingly, that is not something that we can allow to happen. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 17 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, this seems to me an admirable order, which we are happy to support.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Asylum (Designated States) Order 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 18 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the subject that we are dealing with today will no doubt be familiar to those of your Lordships who remain in your Lordships' House and who have knowledge of the debates on previous orders that added countries to the list of countries to which the non-suspensive appeal provisions in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 apply. The draft order that we are debating today will add India to the list of designated countries in Section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.
	To avoid any confusion, it may be helpful if I say at the outset that the devastation caused by the tsunami does not have a bearing on the addition of India to the list of countries designated for non-suspensive appeals. The designation of India for non-suspensive asylum appeals is solely related to the handling of asylum and human rights claims. India is generally a safe country where people are not routinely fleeing from human rights abuses, and very few people need our protection under the refugee convention. The tsunami was a tragic natural disaster and as a Government and a nation we have responded extremely sympathetically.
	We have for the time being suspended enforced removals of failed asylum seekers to the southern coast of India, in line with our overall policy on areas directly affected by the tsunami on Boxing Day. The designation of India for non-suspensive asylum appeals systems is solely about the handling of asylum and human rights claims, as I have made clear. India is generally a safe country, and we consider it such.
	Before discussing the specific case of India, noble Lords may find it helpful if I briefly recall the main elements of the non-suspensive appeals process. Those countries that are designated for non-suspensive asylum appeals are considered to be generally safe in the context of asylum and human rights claims. An unsuccessful asylum or human rights claim made by a person entitled to reside in a designated state will be certified as clearly unfounded unless the Secretary of State deems that the claim is not clearly unfounded. The effect of a clearly unfounded certificate is that there will be no in-country right of appeal against the refusal of their claim. The right of appeal will be exercisable only from outside the United Kingdom.
	Section 94 of the 2002 Act contains a provision to add countries to the list by affirmative order, but only when the Secretary of State is satisfied that there is in general in that state no serious risk of persecution of persons entitled to reside in that state or part, and that removal to that state or part or it of persons entitled to reside there will not in general contravene the United Kingdom's obligations under the Convention on Human Rights.
	In considering the addition of India to the list of designated countries, we have taken this legal test as the starting point. We have, as before, taken full account of the available current country information we publish. We have also taken account of other factors such as the number of asylum applications made, the grant rates and the outcome of appeals. I should like to comment on each of the three elements in turn.
	The first element is the legal test. We are satisfied that there is in general no serious risk of persecution in India and that it is a country to which removal of an individual would not in general breach the United Kingdom's ECHR obligations. We are not saying that India—or any of the other 14 countries currently on the list—is entirely safe for everyone. No country would meet that test. What we are saying is that these countries are safe for most people.
	India has signed and ratified all six of the core UN human rights treaties except the Convention Against Torture, which has been signed but not ratified. India has a democratic, parliamentary system of government with representatives elected in multi-party elections. The constitution provides citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercise this right in practice through periodic, free and fair elections held on the basis of universal suffrage. The constitution provides for an independent judiciary. We have considered particularly the situation of women in India and made the decision to designate the country only following a fact-finding mission to India which found that options for redress were generally available for women in India.
	As I said, inclusion on the list reflects a general level of safety, not a total absence of any mistreatment. It is for this reason that we continue to give every asylum or human rights claim from a resident of a designated country full consideration on its individual merits. The claim would not be refused or certified as clearly unfounded unless we were satisfied, after individual consideration, that the claim fell to be refused and certified.
	Particular care is taken to ensure that initial decisions from the designated states are correct. All decisions are undertaken by caseworkers who have undergone specific additional training and have been accredited to make such decisions. Each and every decision is approved by a trained senior caseworker before being served. These are additional safeguards over and above what is in place for those claims that are not from the designated countries. Although cases which are certified do not give rise to an in-country right of appeal, as a further failsafe to this process, individuals whose claims are certified have the opportunity to seek judicial review of the certification of their claim as clearly unfounded if they consider it has been incorrectly certified. Such individuals will not be removed while their judicial review applications are pending.
	The second element that we took into account in considering the addition of India to the list of designated countries is our published country information material. Noble Lords will recall that we had previously given a commitment to consult the independent Advisory Panel on Country Information on the country information being used by the Government before making an order to add a country to the list.
	The panel has been established since September 2003. Its remit is to provide rigorous external scrutiny of country information material produced by the Home Office and make recommendations to help ensure that it is of the highest quality. The panel has shown itself to be working very effectively and its work has resulted in the introduction of a range of measures to improve the way the material is produced and assure quality. That has led to a widely acknowledged improvement in the quality and presentation of Home Office country information material.
	The panel's role in non-suspensive appeals is to provide advice regarding the accuracy and objectivity of the country information produced on the countries proposed for designation. It is not expected to comment on the proposal to designate a particular country.
	In that context, the panel held an extraordinary meeting on 7 December 2004 to consider the country information on India. The October 2004 Country Report and the report of a fact-finding mission to India were also considered in regard to the position of women. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, is a member of the panel and, I understand, attended the meeting. The minutes of the panel's meeting have been published on its website with all the relevant papers.
	On the Country Report, the panel had a few concerns about the way the material was organised, but generally found it a fair reflection of the position in India. On the report of the fact-finding mission, it said that relevant information was included in the report, but there were some comments suggesting that it could be presented in a more accessible way. We will ensure that those comments are taken on board as we review the methodology.
	I should like finally to turn to the third element that we took into account before deciding to designate India—the statistical evidence.
	The number of asylum and human rights applications made by Indians in the United Kingdom is at a high level and not consistent with what is known about conditions in the country. Very few claims are granted. In 2003, excluding dependants, there were 2,290 asylum claims from Indians, 2,335 decisions were taken and only 10 grants of asylum were made. In the first nine months of 2004, there were 1,095 claims, 1,220 initial decisions, but only one or two grants of asylum. In both years less than 5 per cent of appeals have been successful.
	I should like to conclude with a brief overview of the impact of the non-suspensive appeals process thus far. The implementation and gradual expansion of the non-suspensive appeal provisions has proved to be an important and effective way in which we can reduce unfounded claims. The intake of new applications from the countries designated on the face of the 2002 Act—the then 10 EU accession countries—fell by 97 per cent from October 2002 to April 2004 when the states concerned became members of the EU and the non-suspensive appeals designation effectively ended. That compared with an overall fall in intake of 70 per cent over the same period.
	For the countries designated by the first order which came into effect on 1 April 2003—namely Albania, Bulgaria, Jamaica, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and Serbia and Montenegro—intake fell by 67 per cent from March 2003 to September 2004. Overall intake fell by 31 per cent in this period. There was a similar and very significant fall in intake from the countries designated by the second order which came into effect on 22 July 2003—Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Ukraine. Intake from those countries fell by 47 per cent from June 2003 to September 2004, with the overall intake during that period falling by 15 per cent. Those figures show how effective the non-suspensive appeal powers are and that they are making a significant contribution to our asylum strategy.
	With one exception, challenges to the designation of countries for non-suspensive appeals have not reached substantive hearing in the courts. That exception is in the case of a Bangladeshi where we are currently awaiting the High Court judgment on a legal challenge that has been made to the designation of Bangladesh. The challenge is primarily on the basis of the treatment of women, political and religious minorities and children, and is significant enough to mean that, overall, the country cannot be considered to meet the legal test. We will, if necessary, review the position of Bangladesh when the court's judgment is handed down. But in any event, in the context of asylum and human rights claims, the safety or otherwise of a particular group or groups in one country does not mean that another country is unsafe.
	Designating a country for non-suspensive appeals provides a disincentive for people with no genuine protection needs misusing the asylum process. That leads to enhanced public confidence in the overall asylum system, a reduction in intake, a speeding up of the process and a consequent releasing of resources which can be used to improve performance in other areas. This order adding India to the list of designated countries is a sensible and measured step towards the increased use of non-suspensive appeals. I therefore commend the order to your Lordships' House.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 18 January be approved [6th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for the very full explanation he has given of the order's purposes and the principles that lie behind it.
	We on these Benches opposed, and continue to oppose, the concept of a white list of countries for asylum purposes. We believe that applications for asylum should be considered on merits and without any statutory presumptions of these kinds and that no distinctions should be made between white list countries and others. However, that is a matter of principle which was decided by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. It is plainly not correct that that decision of principle should be reopened when considering this order. So I will not go into the question of the merits or demerits of non-suspensive appeals but consider only the question of whether India is or is not an appropriate country to add to this list. In doing so, I would refer in particular to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office report on international human rights published in 2004.
	There, are, indeed, some problems. The Minister mentioned the treatment of women. There is also a serious problem with the Dalits—the group of people formerly known as untouchables and now also known as the scheduled casts—who are subject to oppression. They are, indeed, protected under the Indian constitution and by Indian law, but their low status is, unfortunately, deeply ingrained in Indian culture.
	Concerns are also expressed in the FCO report about bonded labour. Serious concerns also arise about breaches of human rights by both Indian security forces and militants in the parts of Kashmir under Indian administration. I would like, therefore, to ask the Minister whether India, for the purposes of this order, includes the parts of Kashmir that are under Indian administration and, if so, whether the Government will recognise that in practice Kashmir should not be treated as included in the white list for non-suspensive appeals even if India as a whole is?
	In the past there has been concern about routine torture by the police. That led to a decision some years ago of the European Court of Human Rights that the extradition to India of a Sikh activist, Mr Chahal, would be a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention. However, I understand that India has taken steps to correct the situation and that torture does not feature in the FCO report for 2004 in relation to India.
	India has a human rights commission that is activist and highly respected, and it has a strong legal system. Indeed, India has a better human rights record than a number of countries that are already on the white list. I therefore take the view that if we have to have a white list it is appropriate for India to be on it. For that reason we will not oppose the order.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the huge strides made in India, as mentioned in the report to which the noble Lord has just referred. Perhaps Bangladesh is a different kettle of fish, but that is not being discussed today.
	Two years ago I had the privilege of visiting a number of states in India, the principal ones being Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal. I had discussions with parliamentarians, including members of the communist party who are very important, certainly in Kerala and West Bengal. I quizzed them on the matters that we are discussing. I was given what I believe to be full and straightforward answers. I certainly recognise the point made about women and about other matters in India. However, I believe those are separate to the matter of the asylum order that we are discussing. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, made that distinction and I reach the same conclusion.

Lord Judd: My Lords, while of course this order will be passed today and no one will challenge it, it is important that whenever we have an order of this kind before us, we recall that we are dealing with a compromise. It may in terms of the whole business of political reality be an inevitable compromise, but it is a compromise. There can be no doubt that when one is dealing with the issue of asylum ideally no stone should be left unturned to discover whether or not the individual has a case for asylum. There should not be arrangements of administrative convenience that enable us to short-circuit that process of establishing what really are the circumstances of a particular individual.
	I totally endorse the points that have been made about gender but all the time we must remember that here we are dealing with a compromise on the principle of what asylum is all about. It is important to say that because it is important in regard to the way in which we administer policy. We should support Ministers. I have absolutely no doubt that my noble friend the Minister and many of his colleagues are very committed to civilised and decent standards regarding the way in which immigration policy is administered, whatever the policy may be. However, there is too much evidence that that message has not got through to all the people involved in the administration of immigration policy.
	The thing that one should remember at all times is that people in that situation should be treated with respect and dignity. One of the challenges to everyone involved in the administration of policy is to ensure that dignity and respect for individuals, whatever the ultimate decision, are at the top of their priority list.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the three noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate in response to my initial rather lengthy exposition. I wanted to ensure that we put as much information as we could into the public domain. That is why I discussed the rationale and the thinking behind the order in the detail in which I did. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for his response to that.
	Certainly the discussions I had with Indian parliamentarians on a recent visit to India gave me increased confidence in the robustness of the Indian parliamentary system, its processes and the way in which it works and operates. I was particularly impressed by the work that is being undertaken by India's national human rights commission. In relation to women's rights, I was especially encouraged to hear of the important piece of legislation on domestic violence which I believe is currently working its way through the Indian parliament. That is part of the Indian Government's common minimum programme. The measure is likely to reach the statute book and offers us further reassurance in that policy area.
	The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, referred to Kashmir. While I know that there are understandable concerns about the position of Indians in Kashmir, and that this is a very difficult area for some, it is included within the remit of the order. I return to the point that I made earlier; namely, that we have to take the country of India as a whole and consider how it meets the legal test for designation. As I explained, we consider that it does. However, having said that, and picking up the point effectively made by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, we have to consider all asylum claims on their merits. They have to be taken individually. We are confident that we can deal with particular difficulties that are thrown up by individual cases. I am sure that noble Lords will understand what I mean in regard to those who might be, or have been, caught up in conflicts relating to Kashmir.
	Having said all that, I commend the order to your Lordships' House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Amendment) Order 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16 December 2004 be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I wish to speak also to the final Motion in my name on the Order Paper.
	The orders, laid before Parliament on 16 December, are made under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. I shall deal with both instruments.
	The aim of these orders is to bring a small number of public authorities within the 2000 Act's strict control and oversight regime. This will mean that their requirements for acquiring communication data, conducting directed surveillance and using covert human intelligence sources or informants will have to be for a specific purpose, drawn directly from the European Convention on Human Rights; necessary for one of those purposes; proportionate to what is sought to be achieved, and authorised by an officer at a specific and senior level within the public authority.
	The orders will enable some powers previously debated by Parliament to be used and will remove powers from those public authorities with no need to exercise them. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Amendment) Order is made under Section 25(1), (2) and (3) and Section 78(5) of the 2000 Act. Communications data, such as telephone and Internet subscriber information, itemised billing records, and even mobile phone location data is a vital tool in the prevention and detection of crime. Communications data does not include the content of any communication. That is already tightly regulated by Part 1, Chapter 1 of the 2000 Act.
	The order provides powers to public authorities to acquire communications data under Part 2 of Chapter 1 of the 2000 Act, consistent with the powers and functions that they already have. This include new authorities: the Independent Police Complaints Commission; the Office of Communications, Ofcom—although Parliament considered and approved the requirement that the former Radiocommunications Agency had for detecting pirate broadcasters, which is now a function of Ofcom; and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which from April will replace the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary. It also includes other long-established authorities with functions of a public nature: the ports police at Dover and Liverpool.
	The order also provides that a senior civilian officer or seconded police officer within the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency may authorise the acquisition of communications data. This brings the SDEA in line with the multi-agency arrangements for the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. Accreditation of officials who use these powers ensures that they understand the legal and technical issues involved and provides the communications industry with a mechanism to authenticate those individuals placing disclosure requirements upon their businesses. The exercise of these powers is subject to oversight by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Swinton Thomas, who is obliged to keep under review and report to Parliament on the exercise and performance of powers and duties relating to the acquisition of communications data.
	Anyone who thinks that their data has been wrongly acquired has the right to make a complaint to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. If the commissioner were to establish that an individual had been adversely affected by any wilful or reckless failure by any person exercising or complying with the powers and duties under the Act in relation to the acquisition or disclosure of communications data, he will inform the affected individual of the existence of the tribunal and its role, and disclose sufficient information to the affected person to enable him or her effectively to engage the tribunal. All public authorities must follow the procedures set down in the draft code of practice on acquisition and disclosure of communications data, which explains the provisions in detail. This has been extensively revised, and it will shortly be subject to a further public consultation.
	The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Directed Surveillance and Covert Human Intelligence Sources) Order is made in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 30(1), (3), (5) and (6) and Section 78(5) of the 2000 Act. Part 2 of the Act provides a statutory framework regulating the conduct of covert surveillance and the use of covert human intelligence sources by public authorities. Directed surveillance does not include covert surveillance of anything taking place on any residential premises or in any private vehicle—that would constitute intrusive surveillance. This order does not confer any powers to any authority to conduct intrusive surveillance.
	This order provides powers to new public authorities, and long-established authorities with public functions, to conduct directed surveillance and use covert human intelligence sources within a statutory framework, consistent with powers and functions that they already have. Again, this includes Ofcom, the new Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the ports police at Dover and Liverpool. Equally, the order removes powers from public authorities and officials that no longer require them: health authorities and officials of the transport security directorate of the Department for Transport.
	The exercise of these powers is subject to independent oversight by the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, Sir Andrew Leggatt. Like the Interception Commissioner, he is obliged to keep under review and report to Parliament on the exercise and performance of powers and duties relating to the conduct of surveillance and use of covert human intelligence sources. Anyone who thinks they have wrongly been the subject of surveillance or their human rights have been infringed has the right to make a complaint to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Codes of practice on covert surveillance and covert human intelligence sources have been approved by Parliament by affirmative resolution and set out the procedures to be followed under the Act to conduct directed surveillance or use a covert human intelligence source.
	These draft orders represent a continuing process to ensure that public authorities carry out their lawful functions and activities in a regulated manner that protects individuals' rights of respect for their privacy. The orders are compatible with the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, and they ensure that the acquisition of communications data, conduct of directed surveillance and the use of covert human intelligence sources can take place in a way where respect for human rights is explicit. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Amendment) Order 2005 be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister's explanation of these difficult provisions, because there is little in our whole canon of legislation that is more complex than the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, as the noble Lord will recollect from our demanding debates when that legislation was passed. He will recollect that he rightly drew attention to the remedy of a citizen aggrieved by the use of powers under RIPA being justiciable at the behest of the Interception of Communications Commissioner. Initially, the commissioner was not even required to tell a citizen whose information had been improperly purloined that there had been that impropriety. At least we got that change made to the legislation.
	I have two questions on the orders. First, I note that Ofcom is one of the new authorities authorised by the two orders, but I also note that the level of authorisation required of Ofcom is higher in the case of the directed surveillance and covert human intelligence sources order than under the communications data amendment order. Why is that the case? Secondly, what sort of training, authorisation, oversight and discipline applies to the special constables of Dover Harbour Board and the constables of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company? Can the House be assured that those who will have these important powers are under due control and subject to the right level of training?

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury. As will be obvious, we are not opposing these orders, but my noble friend has raised questions that require answers. Beyond that, I have nothing to add to what he has already said.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I welcome the tightening up of the list of bodies which now have rights under RIPA. At first, I was a bit worried that every time we had name changes in statutory bodies we would have to come back with an affirmative instrument in Parliament, but I understand that is not the case. Fortunately, they just happened to be bundled with this because some other changes that did require an affirmative instrument.
	There is one thing that we will need to think about in the future. I have heard that many other bodies, not all government statutory bodies, are banging on the door hoping to get rights as well, to try to look out for other things such as rigging the results of competitions. What worries me about RIPA in the whole is the self-authorisation aspect. Perhaps one should have some mechanism whereby such bodies could get the data, but are not authorised for self-authorisation under RIPA and have to go via the police or some other suitable body.
	I very much look forward to seeing the new draft code of practice, which I understand will come out in the near future.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for their comments. I shall try to respond to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips; I am grateful, as he probably gave us some early indication of at least one of the questions that he was going to ask.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, asked about the training and oversight of port police officers and Ofcom. In respect of the acquisition of communications data and the conduct of surveillance, the training will be pretty much exactly the same as that given to Home Office police forces generally. Those involved in the work will attend training courses that are properly accredited by the Association of Chief Police Officers. All acquisition of communications data and conduct of surveillance is subject to the oversight of the commissioner.
	Dover and Liverpool are the only port forces that have special investigative branches, and both are headed by a senior former detective superintendent. All those working in those departments are ex-police officers, so they have already received a lot of the training that will be necessary. So far as I can see, most have taken additional training from within the home forces. Having met some of the officers, although not recently, I can say that they are properly trained and understand exactly what they are doing and the nature of the work. They operate in a very discreet way and have a full understanding of the framework of the law. We should be very confident about how they operate.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, asked a further question about the higher authority of Ofcom. Ofcom is in the communications data order because it can access very sensitive communications material. As a consequence, it has offered itself up for self-regulation by seeking to have itself included in the higher authority for that communications work. I feel somewhat reassured by that myself, because Ofcom recognises that it requires that higher authority. I trust that that answers his questions.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Directed Surveillance and Covert Human   Intelligence Sources) (Amendment) Order 2005

Lord Bassam of Brighton: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 16 December 2004 be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I have already spoken to the order. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 16 December 2004 be approved [5th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

HIV/AIDS

Baroness Northover: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government:
	What further plans they have to help tackle the AIDS epidemic and support the increasing number of HIV/AIDS orphans in Africa and elsewhere.
	My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords who have stayed to play a part in this debate so late in the parliamentary week. There is surely no greater challenge facing development than the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is why we are here today. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out when introducing the debate on Wednesday on the UN high-level panel, poverty has to be seen as part of the security agenda, and state failure is part of the development agenda. He said:
	"Pandemic disease threatens to destroy the very structure of states".—[Official Report, 2/2/05; col. 249.]
	AIDS is therefore a global catastrophe that affects us all.
	This is a key year for the UK and its international agenda. The presidency of the G8 and the EU should give it especial leverage with other developed nations. This year, we measure how far we have come in reaching the millennium development goals. Are we on course? We know that we are not. HIV is spreading rapidly across the world. In China, India, the Ukraine and Russia, infection rates are rapidly increasing. But the worst situation is in Africa. The incidence of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa is now at catastrophic levels. In Botswana it is 40 per cent, with a rate of more than 60 per cent in some mining communities. By 2010, life expectancy there may have fallen to 29.
	The MDGs were never going to be easy to achieve. Now AIDS threatens to throw them all off course. Young men and especially young women are dying, children are being orphaned, and health services, education and economies are imploding. In its report published this week on where we are with the MDGs, DfID includes among its targets getting 3 million people into treatment, rapid implementation of the three "ones" on donor and recipient government co-ordination, and national plans in place to meet the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children. It wishes to be:
	"On track to slow the progress of HIV and AIDS by 2015".
	But is that enough? Are we on course even for that?
	As one South African academic told me, in that country,
	"the treatment rollout is glacial".
	Only 18,500 people are now in treatment. It was supposed to have been 53,000 by March 2003. He even wonders about triage and perhaps selecting health workers for treatment first. Of course there are special circumstances in South Africa, but there are special circumstances everywhere. We have to overcome those challenges. HIV is like a ticking bomb. The infection may be contracted, but it is a decade or so before the person develops symptoms. Meanwhile, they may have transmitted the disease to partners and children. Then they get ill, fall further into vulnerability and poverty, and die, often leaving young children behind.
	The scale of the problem of orphans and vulnerable children is something to which the world woke up late. Around 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. By 2010, that is likely to have grown to at least 18 million, with 25 million worldwide. By 2010 in many southern African countries, 20 per cent of children will be orphans. Many are living with grandparents who are already struggling to survive. Those children tend to be poorer than children living with their immediate families. They face a higher risk of malnutrition and death, even if they themselves are not HIV positive. They are less likely to attend school, more likely to suffer violence and sexual abuse, and more likely to be at higher risk of HIV infection. Girls suffer disproportionately. Values and experience are not always passed down to those children. The UN warns that agricultural practices are being lost because of the death of parents.
	The disaster is therefore clearly about not only those infected, but those who depend on them, and their wider society. Research on vaccines and microbicides, prevention and education are all key to the battle against AIDS. I welcome the statement by Cardinal Georges Cottier, a senior official in the heart of the Vatican, who accepted the position that the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" justifies the use of condoms. Condoms can prevent death as well as the conception of life. But that still is not protecting young women within marriage or partnerships. In southern Africa, the highest incidence is among that group. As Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA, asked here on Wednesday, what is the use of ABC to such women? They are in the main faithful, but because they are married cannot abstain and cannot force their partners to use condoms. If anything positive comes out of this tragedy, it must be greater gender equality.
	ActionAid and others are right to urge the G8 to accept that we have to move rapidly towards universal access. Yes, it is expensive; yes, it is difficult, because you must improve health provision generally and alleviate poverty in order to do that but, with 6,000 children orphaned every day, there is surely no other choice.
	Chris Smith was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1987. But no one would have guessed that when he was a Cabinet Minister. I welcome Nelson Mandela's brave statement about his son, but Chris Smith has made an even more important announcement. He has bravely shown and now shared the fact that you can live with HIV and participate in society to the full. As he has said, we have to give that hope and opportunity to those in other parts of the world.
	I met a group of HIV positive women in the township of Khayelitsha outside Cape Town in September and their fears, which are so profound, are especially for their children. We know that they should not need to have that fear. We can start by protecting children, where their mothers are HIV positive, by preventing transmission to the infant. In South Africa it is reported by Dr Debbie Bradshaw and others that probably 75 per cent of children who die under the age of five are dying from AIDS.
	I visited one centre which was caring for children with AIDS. Those looking after them pointed out that the South African Government never counted the cost of looking after these very sick children when they reckoned that they could not afford the drugs that would have prevented their mothers passing on the disease. We must pursue the provision of treatment to their mothers so that they can continue to care for their children, way beyond the 3 by 5 initiative. The US should set aside protecting its own industry here; cheap generics and the relaxing of trade rules are required. Huge investment in health services is also needed. Meanwhile, how do we care for children who are already orphaned?
	Children on the Brink, published in 2002 by UNAIDS and UNICEF, pointed out that:
	"Care provided in institutional settings often fails to meet the developmental and long term needs of children".
	Also, child-headed households are vulnerable. The preferred solution to this terrible problem is to accommodate children in the extended family. But this, too, is difficult. Families are put under immense strain trying to use their limited resources to pay for additional children. Often children are forced out to work, cannot attend school or are abused. Aged relatives, often lone grandparents, with many children in their care, reach breaking point and desperate poverty. Money needs to follow those orphans if the families are not to go under. Plans have to be made for what happens when a grandparent dies.
	Yet at the moment, UNICEF estimates that less than 3 per cent of these children receive public support for basic services, so there is a long way to go. Last year DfID published a strategy on tackling HIV/AIDS in the developing world and the commitment in that to closing the funding gap, strengthening political leadership and improving the international response, is very welcome.
	However, in addition to hearing an update on the areas that I have covered, I have a number of specific questions which I would be grateful if the Minister would answer. DfID's strategy committed £1.5 billion to AIDS over the next three years. Of that £150 million is for children affected by AIDS, with 80 per cent for orphans in Africa, much of which will go through DfID country programmes. Could he please say whether that £150 million is all new money, or had some of it already been pledged before? How will the money be allocated between different countries? When will DfID's revised country assistance plans for the relevant countries be completed and will DfID's field offices be producing detailed action plans for orphans in addition to these?
	What steps are being taken to help to increase the capacity of the often marginalised ministries in these countries, which are responsible for protecting the rights and meeting the needs of orphans? What is being done to ensure that civil society organisations in developing countries can access resources to help those children? How will the money be tracked and its effectiveness monitored?
	Finally, the Global Partners Forum, convened by the World Bank and UNICEF, aims to intensify the global response for such children by highlighting progress and identifying challenges. In light of the importance that the DfID strategy attaches to political leadership, will the UK Government be hosting the Global Partners Forum in 2005?
	This is a key year for the UK on the international stage. It set up the Commission for Africa and it says that Africa and climate change are at the top of their agenda for the G8 and the EU. The UK has much to do to persuade the US in particular to join with it in tackling world poverty in a way that most benefits the poor rather than US industry. I look forward to hearing noble Lords' expertise in this huge and challenging area and hearing what the Minister has to say about a catastrophe which, more than Boxing Day's tidal wave, threatens to sweep away so many across at least one continent.

Lord Rea: My Lords, although I am sorry that it had to be on a Friday, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing time for this important Unstarred Question. She was one of the 17 Members of Parliament and Peers of the all-party groups on Africa and AIDS who took part in the inquiry that led to the very readable document, Averting Catastrophe, published last year. Its findings and recommendations are too many to list now, but the noble Baroness has covered some of them. The Government have also published their response, as well as their own group of documents, referred to by the noble Baroness, outlining their HIV/AIDS strategy and action plan.
	Another all-party group, that on population and reproductive health, of which I am a member, also published its report last year following its hearings on the "missing link", emphasising the obvious link that should exist between HIV/AIDS policies and programmes and reproductive health and family planning services. It is very wasteful to fund the two lines separately, when both complement the other. The need for that linkage has been accepted by DfID, UNAIDS and UNFPA, and our report was welcomed in the same speech by Thoraya Obaid, the executive director of the UN Population Fund, a few days ago mentioned by the noble Baroness. The problem is to ensure that reproductive health in general, which should be the basis of treatment and preventive services for all sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, is not swamped by "vertical" programmes directed specifically at HIV.
	The impression gained by reading some of the many documents published by governments, NGOs, all-party groups and multilateral agencies, is that there are many plans and projected actions, most of which are laudable, but there is a dearth of reports describing and evaluating what has been done and measuring the effects of those actions. Of course, many projects are only just getting off the ground and it may be several years before significant effects can be seen, but the problem is vast and efforts to contain it are still inadequate in scale. Even if all the millennium goals, the 3 by 5 initiative, the Global Fund and all the other goals were reached on time, the problem would still be with us—although, of course, if we could achieve those goals we would be in a better position to make further progress. I am here emphasising the comments of the noble Baroness.
	The progress that has been made in containing the epidemic in certain countries—for example, Uganda, Senegal and Thailand are three of the best known; and, on a minor scale, I should mention the UK itself—in every case has occurred because their governments have recognised the scale of the problem and have not been afraid to spell it out and share it with the people. Sustained, frank and effective campaigns of health education, designed to change behaviour, are the basis of improvement and change. That has to come from within each country.
	The care of adults and of children left orphaned by HIV/AIDS is far better when a community, whether in the developed or the developing world, comes out of denial and stigma is removed. That is why it is so important when highly respected statesmen and personalities, such as Nelson Mandela and Chris Smith—the same two names mentioned by the noble Baroness—are honest about their situation.
	My experience of the HIV epidemic comes from my chairmanship a few years ago of the non-governmental organisation called Healthlink Worldwide, which supports and shares experience with primary healthcare workers in the developing world. I also visited Kenya two years ago, where I spent 10 days with ICROSS, a charity supporting primary and home-based care in western Kenya.
	My lasting impression is of the strength, resilience and mutual support to be found in local communities in the face of poverty and disease, and of the appreciation that they have of quite simple care given by members of their own community who have received appropriate training. Orphans do much better if they can remain in their own communities, but those communities and their adopting parents or grandparents need financial support. That is best provided through local organisations working with charities or non-governmental organisations, such as ICROSS, which have established a mutually trusting relationship.
	One of the best pieces of evidence that the all-party group received was that from World Vision. I want to quote one paragraph from that report under the heading "Caregivers":
	"Caregivers, also known as home visitors, are individuals living in the same community with the [orphans or vulnerable children]"—
	OVCs—a horrible term—
	"who provide them with care and support. They may be nominated by the church, OCV coalition members, or self-nominated to provide care to OVCs on a day-to-day basis. Most caregivers will likely be women and men who are already visiting vulnerable family members and neighbours on their own or as members of a church group, a women's group, a youth group, or some other community body. These caregivers, who volunteer their time to support [orphans and vulnerable children] and affected households, form the backbone of a strategy for care and support".
	These home visitors, who are literate but have no other qualifications, receive support and training from World Vision and—the organisation that I visited—ICROSS members.
	However, I am concerned that DfID, with its country assistance plans aiming to strengthen the health infrastructure through government structures, which may not be working well, may not fund the community-based organisations such as those I have mentioned. These are usually non-governmental organisations which have developed working relationships with people on the ground and understand local beliefs and social structures and, most importantly, can be trusted to manage finances honestly.
	To sum up, of course more money is needed. It is a scandal that most people with HIV/AIDS in the developing world will not receive anti-retroviral therapy for many years. The cost of one year's ART—I am sorry to use the jargon—using generic drugs is now down to less than 200 dollars per person per year. To treat the 8 million Africans with AIDS would therefore cost 1.6 billion dollars a year, and to treat the entire 20 million people in Africa with HIV or AIDS would cost 4 billion dollars—that is every year, on and on. Of course, the health infrastructure also needs to be built up so that the programme can be administered. I meant to indicate earlier that that might well be done much more simply than we think by using specifically trained local workers to monitor the treatment that is being given.
	I shall make one final point. The President of the United States recently asked Congress for 80 billion dollars to support US forces in Iraq for the current year. That would be enough to treat the 8 million AIDS victims for 50 years. However, if the United States insisted on the full price being paid for its patented drugs, it would treat sufferers for less than half that period. I suggest that that is not only morally outrageous but also very short-sighted. Eight million or possibly 20 million able-bodied people who may now die could enrich the world, including the USA.

Baroness D'Souza: My Lords, I, too, wish to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for securing this debate. I shall speak briefly on two very different aspects of HIV/AIDS: what field research has revealed about the effects of HIV/AIDS on household income; and the role of broadcasting in educating people about HIV/AIDS more generally. These two separate themes I shall attempt to weave together seamlessly.
	A great deal of research has been undertaken since AIDS was acknowledged as a major factor in determining the viability of small communities, especially in southern Africa. Clearly there are methodological difficulties in carrying out studies of this kind. How do you know who is HIV positive, for example, and how do you measure the effect on income levels in a given household? More recent work has overcome some of these problems and begins to show interesting results.
	For example, a study sponsored by the Department for International Development of HIV/AIDS in a small rural community in Swaziland, where the HIV prevalence was, I think, 38 per cent, aimed to identify the main factors affecting income levels in both HIV and non-HIV households. One conclusion was that not all households affected by AIDS were necessarily poorer. The death of a non-employed person, sadly, could—temporarily at least—increase the disposable income of a family. Nevertheless, households in which a young adult had died within the past five years and/or which had accepted an orphan from outside the household—both pretty clear indicators of the presence of HIV/AIDS—were also among the poorest. But the very poor also shared certain characteristics, such as less access to land, more unemployment and more low-paid employment, irrespective of HIV status.
	The conclusions suggest that in rural areas, at least, it is still poverty rather than HIV/AIDS alone that must continue to be tackled. One has to avoid the practice of what is called "AIDS exceptionalism", whereby households affected by HIV/AIDS receive special subsidies, such as assistance with primary school fees. In this particular community, school dropouts were not predominantly from HIV households but from the very poor, non-HIV households.
	This study, among others in the region, again shows that small inputs at the local level can be very effective. Examples include free schooling, targeted food distribution to the poorest households, school feeding projects, the promotion of local formal sector employment and support for agricultural inputs, such as seed and fertiliser.
	Poverty is poverty, however caused, and too often results in early maternal deaths and orphans. The local capacity to absorb orphans into extended family or other households may, of course, become saturated, as is more likely in the urban rather than the rural context. But, at present, the local traditional solution is by far the most constructive. If that means subsidising orphan households, that, again, is both do-able and relatively inexpensive.
	More long-term solutions require more substantial inputs over an extended period and, of these, perhaps one of the most important is educating both adults and particularly the young on HIV/AIDS avoidance. This is where another UK initiative comes to the fore, and I speak of the BBC World Service and the BBC World Service Trust, which have taken on a highly effective public service broadcasting role on this issue.
	Let us consider the numbers. The World Service has a faithful audience of some 180 million people around the world. It broadcasts in 43 languages. One of its strongest audience areas is sub-Saharan Africa, where it is estimated that weekly listeners amount to something like 68 million adults.
	The World Service works collaboratively with the World Service Trust, which many here will already know is an independent charity that aims to reduce poverty in developing countries by means of innovative use of the media. These services ran a highly successful HIV/AIDS season in 2003, with programmes on the history of AIDS, its impact on the economy and society, and its health implications. They also broadcast direct advice on sexual practices. Listener participation systems were developed and thousands of people told their personal stories, often, one suspects, for the first time. A poll on knowledge of, and attitudes towards, HIV/AIDS was organised in 15 countries and the results were revealed and discussed in a special programme.
	Further campaigns are planned for sub-Saharan Africa, following a successful mass media campaign in India. At least 125 million people watched an interactive TV detective drama, which not only solved crimes but dispelled myths about HIV/AIDS. An equally popular youth reality show followed young people travelling around India on a bus promoting AIDS awareness. There were phone-in facilities, and it is estimated that something like 1,000 individual programmes were aired, together with TV adverts reaching 43 million people. The cost per viewer was minimal, given the economies of scale, and the behavioural change was indicated by a 25 per cent increase in condom use and a 35 per cent increase in discussions on protection against sexually transmitted diseases.
	I wax fervent on these matters, but I do so deliberately. No one who has been in downtown Khartoum—or in almost any major city in Africa or elsewhere—at lunchtime can have failed to notice that everything stops for the BBC World Service news. It is a remarkable medium for information and education, and it has shown itself capable of flexibility and imagination in addressing one of the scourges of our time. In this debate, I wish to underline some of the relatively low-cost, but highly effective, ways in which AIDS awareness can be maintained, children can be educated on how to avoid infection and, one hopes, victims of HIV/AIDS can be provided with sufficient information to begin lobbying for antiretroviral drugs.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Northover for this opportunity to discuss one of the greatest challenges facing developing countries—the spread of HIV/AIDS. My thinking in this area is much influenced by having worked for Students Partnership Worldwide, a medium-sized international NGO which runs youth-led peer education programmes in rural communities in five African and two Asian countries severely affected by HIV/AIDS. I will confine most of my remarks to the economic impact of the pandemic and the role of civil society and youth in this area.
	Many in civil society welcomed the Government's consultation last year on the UK strategy on HIV/AIDS in the developing world. There is much need for joined-up thinking, as one can see from the players in the field. An NGO working on HIV/AIDS has to contend with strategies from, for example, the World Bank, the IMF, UNAIDS, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS and our own DfID. The list goes on and on.
	As other noble Lords have mentioned, there is little doubt of the need for engagement, given the impact of the pandemic. A World Bank report last year, The Macroeconomics of HIV/AIDS, found that in the absence of any government intervention, an otherwise growing economy severely affected by HIV/AIDS could contract to about one-third of its size in three generations. It found that it affects not only the accumulation of human capital—that is, people's life skills, knowledge and experience—but also negatively exacerbates poverty and inequality, debilitates welfare programmes and impacts on economic growth overall.
	The importance of young people to prospects for economic development cannot be overstated. As the Prime Minister's commission for Africa notes, half of the African population is under 18 years of age and so the potential for the pandemic to escalate is horrific, if current trends of new infections continue and if action is not taken now. Yet precious few strategies exist which focus principally on ensuring that young people are given knowledge of preventing the disease, are provided with access to care and are empowered through life skills so that they can become members of the workforce despite having contracted HIV/AIDS.
	I quote a powerful statement from the World Bank report:
	"The simple fact that AIDS kills young adults can have profound implications for the whole economy. By killing young adults, often in the prime of their lives, AIDS has an effect not only on its victims, but on their children. Children of AIDS victims are less able to attend school, and also miss out on the life-skills that parents teach their children. In this way, AIDS cuts off the mechanism by which human capital—the engine of long-term economic growth—is transmitted from one generation to the next. If the outbreak of AIDS causes the next generation to be less educated, it means that they, in turn, are less able to provide for their children's education, and so on".
	While important work has started, belatedly, on strategies on orphans, there are other significant groups of young people who remain outside most framework strategies. They are rural young people in some of the poorest regions of their countries in Africa. The rural youth—and the figures show young girls in particular—from the ages of 10 to 24, is the most vulnerable group to new HIV/AIDS infections. Therefore, prevention programmes specifically aimed at that age group are crucial for a lasting solution to the pandemic.
	Many NGOs working on youth-focused programmes find that where prevention forms part of the strategy, there is a growing trend on the part of some international donors to concentrate on abstinence as the bulwark of their preventive programmes. There is great value on exhorting young people in the most deprived rural communities to abstain from sexual activity, but it does not work. It reinforces stigma and discrimination against those who are infected as well as their families. So programmes must provide a full range of information and services which allow young people to make informed choices about if and when to commence sexual relations.
	This is an area where youth-to-youth peer education and life skills has proved to be most successful. I mentioned earlier the SPW approach. This NGO trains young volunteers to deliver programmes which mobilise a community response to HIV/AIDS. The volunteers deliver basic information relating to HIV/AIDS to combat myths and misinformation, and they work with young people to develop their life skills and to combat stigma and discrimination. The volunteers do not come from the developed world alone. They do not all come from SPW and VSO. The emphasis is on recruiting as volunteers young people from within the country and the region who work alongside young people from the developed world.
	They work together out of the local school, with the local health clinic, community leaders, church groups and others, to ensure that there is a community-wide support system for improving preventive strategies and teaching life skills. The local volunteers remain committed to the cause and retain the skills they have learnt as they become adults, so the experience and knowledge-base remains within the community and in the country.
	The problem with community-based approaches such as these is the ever-pressing issue of funding. Many international donors are not sufficiently flexible or pro-risk to support rural community-based initiatives. So the criticism I would have of DfID's approach is that it does not focus sufficiently on youth and community-based programmes in this regard. While the call to action is explicit in its commitment to reducing infection rates among young people, the strategy is being developed separately from DfID's sexual and reproductive health strategy. My concern is that adolescent sexual and reproductive health and the important role of education, in particular peer education, are not fully covered in the HIV/AIDS strategy pursued by DfID.
	Overall, I very much welcome the new approaches adopted by the Government, but I urge greater joined-up thinking, particularly with respect to the role of civil society in working with young people.

Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, in bringing this critically important issue to the attention of your Lordships' House.
	The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, have played an important role in your Lordships' House in keeping this serious threat to the survival of poor countries at the top of the political agenda. This has been a good week for African affairs in the Chamber. The debate follows the four hour debate by my noble friend Lord Hannay of Chiswick, in which he made reference to the millennium development goals review and the causes of conflict in Africa.
	I wish to focus my remarks exclusively on the AIDS epidemic in southern Africa and several of the initiatives to support the increasing number of HIV/AIDS orphans. It is a stark statistic that sub-Saharan Africa has just over 10 per cent of the world's population but is home to more than 60 per cent of all people living with HIV. The AIDS epidemic update, published in December last year, gives the number of those infected in the region at over 25 million, with at least 3 million people newly infected last year and 2.3 million who, sadly, died of AIDS last year.
	I join the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, in applauding the openness of Nelson Mandela in openly declaring the tragic loss of his son to the virus and also the announcement last week by Chris Smith that he has lived with the virus for over 18 years. Chris Smith's case has thankfully shown that the provision of antiretroviral treatment can transform AIDS from a death sentence to a manageable condition. While I welcome the fact that the South African Government have eventually agreed to start the distribution of retroviral drugs to patients with a CD count below 200, it is unfortunately only a drop in the ocean and way below their target of treating 50,000 patients per year.
	I was alarmed to read this morning in a brief I received from the HIV/AIDS campaign of ActionAid International UK that the World Health Organisation is currently facing a 2 billion US dollar shortfall, which could knock off course its commitment to put 3 million people with AIDS on antiretroviral treatment by the end of 2005.
	It appears that the most reliable estimates of the number of AIDS orphans and vulnerable children are given in the UNICEF/UNAIDS Children on the Brink report, published last year. As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, has already mentioned, that report estimates that AIDS has orphaned 12.3 million children in sub-Saharan Africa. This orphan population will certainly increase dramatically in the next decade.
	In the poverty stricken areas of Kwazulu—Natal, in South Africa—the HIV/AIDS pandemic has caused a serious breakdown in the traditional family and community structures. With the absence of a father figure, the availability of the wide range of addictive drugs on the streets, coupled with peer group influence, youth—in particular, young boys—has become vulnerable to crime and drug abuse. Research has shown that the 15 year-olds are the most vulnerable.
	In order to address the long-term effects of these social problems, it is not sufficient simply to feed, clothe and educate these children, although those are obvious priorities, it is imperative to empower, support and protect these vulnerable young children. I stress the word "empower". I have been particularly impressed with the remarkable work of Heather Reynolds who, some 10 years ago, set up an NGO in Kwazulu, Natal, called God's Golden Acre, to care for the increasing numbers of orphaned children in a rural outreach programme in the valley areas supporting more than 750 orphaned children.
	Among her remarkable work she has launched a junior soccer league that involves over 100 teams around the surrounding region. The active participation of these children in an organised soccer league has both empowered them and provided a social venue while drawing them away from the grips of drugs, alcohol and violence. It is heartening to know that the chairman of our FA premier league, Dave Richards, has thrown his full support and his organisation behind this most worthwhile initiative by providing footballs, coaching and other support.
	The debate reminds me of the very moving speech some two years ago in Westminster Hall celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust when Nelson Mandela drew a comparison between the blight of leprosy 100 years ago and the AIDS pandemic today. In a moving account he relayed how he had visited a township just outside Johannesburg where AIDS orphans were almost isolated into an exclusion zone. He relayed how he had personally physically embraced these children and adopted several of them, and the difference that it made to their lives over the ensuing years. He paid tribute to the work of the late Princess Diana, who, through her love and physical affection of many AIDS orphans, had almost empowered them and made them feel like normal human beings.
	It is encouraging to hear that our Government are committed to spending at least £150 million over the next three years on programmes to meet the needs of orphans and other children, particularly in Africa, made vulnerable because of HIV and AIDS. I applaud the recent pledge by Bill Gates and our Chancellor to provide more vaccine treatment.
	It is not just the blight of AIDS that we need to address. I understand that more than 350 million Africans contract malaria every year, and yet malaria medication is not proclaimed as a basic human right.
	HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns are almost non-existent in many squatter camps and rural areas in South Africa. I entirely endorse the sentiments of my noble friend Lady D'Souza that the BBC World Service can play a very important role in getting that message across. More campaigns such as the LoveLife Campaign are required to address the persistent behavioural trends, particularly by the truckers in South Africa, who are largely to blame for the spread of the disease in the rural areas.
	In conclusion, I am encouraged by the framework publication for the protection, care and support of orphans and vulnerable children living in a world with HIV and AIDS. The five key strategies are a good start. It is also encouraging that there are new funding commitments from the 2004 start up of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief from the US Government, UNICEF, UNAIDS and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. That is a good start, but much more is needed.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I am delighted to wind up for my party in this debate. I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Northover on securing the debate, which is of great importance—would that it were not happening on a Friday. Many noble Lords who are not here have said how much they would have liked to have taken part in this debate. Perhaps next time we might be given another day.
	I am no great expert in this area, but I do have a particular concern about what happens to children and the questions that arise concerning their treatment if they are either diagnosed as having AIDS or are HIV positive, as many AIDS orphans sadly turn out to be. Like other noble Lords who have already spoken in the debate, I have received enormous amounts of briefing from a variety of organisations. I am hugely grateful for that and to my noble friend Lady Northover, who organised much of its delivery. I have also had an opportunity for a brief conversation with one of the world's acknowledged experts in the field, Professor Michael Adler, who has attempted to impose some rigour on my thinking.
	As the availability of antiretroviral drugs increases in Africa and elsewhere, and as we head towards hitting the target, or at least we hope we shall, of "3 by 5"—3 million treated with ART drugs by the end of this year, 2005, out of an estimated 9 million who could benefit from the drugs—how will we ensure that, as a nation involved in funding some of these programmes and involved in the G8 countries that have debated these issues, enough of this therapy will go to women and children? That question has been raised time and again during the debate. The all-party parliamentary group has done sterling work, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said. In southern Africa, it is true that, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, said, with the drugs being made available only to those with a count below 200, what is happening is not enough. There is a shortfall. What are we as a nation going to do about that?
	Secondly, given that we know that the number of AIDS orphans is still rising exponentially and that a proportion of them will be HIV-positive, what is being done to ensure that that generation, already so appallingly afflicted by the loss of parents and, in some cases, grandparents, will not simply die as their parents have done? How can the UK Government, in their work through DfID or with other agencies, ensure that AIDS orphans, whose voices will not be among the loudest in the clamour to get access to treatment and who may well not even have enough money to travel to treatment centres, get access both to the drugs and to the prevention programmes that are essential in slowing the spread of the disease? As we know, those are the ones who do not get to school, as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said. They are in the poorest families where there has been the death of a young adult or an orphan has been adopted, as the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, said.
	Some people are beginning to say that AIDS vaccine is so near to development and wide availability that we need to stop worrying about treatment and put all our resources into vaccination. But that philosophy will simply sentence another generation to death before the effects kick in, even if the vaccine is as near as some are saying and even if it were possible to vaccinate sufficiently widely to prevent the spread of the disease. That is not to respond with anything but great praise for what Bill Gates and our Chancellor, Gordon Brown, are proposing, because that is admirable in its own right.
	The questions for the Government—genuine questions, as no one seems to have all the answers—are what DfID can truly do through its programmes and what the Government can do through their partnerships with other agencies involved to ensure various things. The Government's strategy so far has been impressive, but does not go far enough. Here is the list.
	First, ART therapy for those children and young people who have been orphaned and are voiceless and who are not so immuno-compromised already that such treatment may be of little use. Secondly, prevention programmes running alongside that treatment programme, targeting especially young women and girls and including sexually-transmitted infections along with AIDS. That way, sexual behaviours may change; whereas proclaiming abstinence will not work. Young women may be less vulnerable to sexual advances from older, infected men, including, as the noble Lord, Lord St John, said, the truckers in southern Africa, and women and girls may learn to take sexually transmitted infection seriously, because they render people even more liable to AIDS and HIV infection than if they were clear of infection altogether.
	Also important are reproductive health, family planning, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and, of course, great public health campaigns, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza. The work of the World Service has been absolutely stunning in that regard, but there is clearly a great deal more that it could do, had it the funding to do it. I ought to declare an interest as a somewhat infrequent broadcaster on the World Service.
	Thirdly, what other programmes might the Government, in association with other agencies, devise to target young women and girls, who are so often excluded in many developing countries from healthcare programmes in general? What can be done or arranged to be delivered to ensure that women and girls understand that they are entitled to treatment and, particularly where AIDS drugs are still in short supply, as they are throughout the developing world, to ensure that women take precedence over men where, otherwise, the children would be orphaned?
	Fourthly, given the "3 by 5" promise, will the Government consider working with others to make generic drugs more widely available, following the example of CIPLA in India, for instance, by providing drugs for little or nothing? Will they work with the other G8 countries to ensure, as Action Aid is asking, that the right to public health and treatment for AIDS takes precedence over pharmaceutical patents in this area and allow the growth of the manufacture of generic drugs in the very countries and areas worst affected by the disease? For that—bringing down the price and producing the drugs locally—might have the most powerful effect on availability of treatment to women and children of all measures available.
	So I wait with real interest to hear what the Minister says in reply. It is not as if we oppose each other in any sense; everyone is here with the best of intentions to do the best that we possibly can. But we want to know whether DfID's strategy is really on track to slow the progress of the epidemic. We want to know whether the £150 million for orphans is new money and how it will be allocated. Will that be done through the DfID field offices? We want to know what are the plans for working with the most local of local institutions and voluntary bodies, as the noble Lords, Lord Rea and Lord St John of Bletso, suggested.
	Those are questions that the Government have to answer and with which a whole variety of voluntary organisations and people across this House and elsewhere want to be involved. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for securing this important debate. From the debate of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, last week, it was clear that we cannot hope to tackle poverty on a global scale without addressing HIV/AIDS. We on these Benches welcome this opportunity to discuss this significant problem in more detail.
	As many of your Lordships have highlighted, the number of people affected by what the WHO assistant director described as,
	"the premier disease of mass destruction",
	is astounding. At present, more than 39.4 million people in the world are HIV-positive. According to the UN, 5 million contracted the disease in the last year alone and 3 million died of AIDS. In that Malthusian context, the UN has revised down its forecast for world population growth due to the current prediction that nearly 300 million people will die of AIDS before 2050, and that is excluding those who are infected who will die of secondary illnesses due to a weakened immune system.
	Although we welcome the work that Her Majesty's Government have been doing on the issue of HIV/AIDS, kicked off by the Call for Action strategy in 2003 and revitalised by our leadership of the G8, it is clear that the virus is a major contributing factor jeopardising the achievement of the millennium development goals by 2015. As reported last week, they are already well behind schedule.
	The National Audit Office has stated that, from UN Development Programme estimates, the proportion of people living in absolute poverty in Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Uganda as a result of HIV/AIDS will actually increase by 2015. Funding to counter the spread of the virus has tripled since 2001, but it still falls well short of the 12 billion dollars that the UN estimates is needed. What pressure are Her Majesty's Government putting on the US Administration, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, to increase untied targeted funds for HIV/AIDS projects? Although, as I see from last week's presidential briefing, President Bush has increased the funding fourfold since 2001 and his emergency five-year plan of 15 billion dollars is on the way, we will obviously need more.
	The highly critical National Audit Office report last year suggested that there was still much to be done here at home. According to the report, a significant number of DfID strategy papers and country assistance plans failed to mention the virus at all, and at the time of the report, only two of the seven planned guidance notes on HIV/AIDS programmes had been published. Other principal criticisms involved poor money management and inadequate communication to donor countries. What steps have Her Majesty's Government taken to address those concerns? What developments have there been to ensure that the financial support for this issue is ring-fenced for targeting HIV/AIDS by the recipient countries?
	As I have already mentioned, more money is needed to address the problem, but, as we all know, that is of little use unless the funds are spent effectively and efficiently. It is vital that the spending is supported by the political will to make it work where it is most needed. We all know of examples in Africa where leaders do not even acknowledge that the disease exists. Indeed, Kofi Annan has distressingly said that he is not,
	"winning the war [on AIDS] because I don't think the leaders of the world are engaged enough".
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, has already emphasised, the virus has a particularly distressing effect on women and children. Over half of all AIDS sufferers are now women. An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of 15 are also living with the virus, while 14 million children worldwide will have been orphaned by the epidemic by 2010.
	For every male child infected with HIV in Africa between three and six girls are infected. It is a self-perpetuating cycle of disease, poverty and regressive development. The very programmes aimed at empowering and educating women and children to help prevent the spread of the disease are undermined as children are withdrawn from school to care for ill relatives. That was illustrated clearly by the noble Baronesses, Lady Falkner and Lady Neuberger. It is widely recognised that there is a need to address the cultural factors and gender inequalities that fuel this epidemic in Africa and Asia.
	It is also important proactively to try to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child. Cameroon recently saw a sharp rise, doubling HIV prevalence among pregnant women. What steps are Her Majesty's Government taking to ensure that antiretroviral drugs are available and administered properly to pregnant women? Have they had discussions with the Global Health Fund on the purchase and supply of drugs for this specifically affected group?
	It is natural that a lot of this debate—and, indeed, in the current climate, most debates of this kind—should focus on Africa. HIV/AIDS is the continent's biggest killer, particularly among those who play key roles in society, such as teachers, farmers and health workers. However, we must not lose sight of those other parts of the world which also suffer the disease. As the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, highlighted last week, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, mentioned today, the problem is rapidly spreading to India; it is also prevalent in China and other poorer parts of Asia. It is there that more proactive reactions are needed.
	If the current growth of infection continues in India, by 2010 there will be even more people living with the virus in Asia than there are in Africa. Surely, we must do all that we can to stop this. Can the Minister inform the House what percentage of the funds spent on HIV/AIDS programmes goes to non-African countries?
	As a nation, we need to encourage an integrated approach between the BBC World Service Trust, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza; NGOs; businesses; pharmaceutical companies and the WHO. As the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, said, everyone has a responsibility to help.
	I am proud of King's College London: I must declare an interest as chairman of council. Archbishop Tutu opened major new infection and immunity laboratories—financed by HEFCE, the Wellcome Trust, the Dunhill Trust and the Guy's and St Thomas' Charity—at our Guy's campus to carry out research in the area while he was a visiting professor of post-conflict societies at King's in 2004. That research is led by Professor Michael Malim, head of the Department of Infectious Diseases, who investigates the genetic basis of susceptibility and resistance to disease.
	We need to advocate holistic approaches to tackling the virus within the developing countries, build up the infrastructures necessary to administer medical care and access to clean water and sanitation, as well as focusing on drugs. Most of all we need the international political will to win the war on HIV/AIDS.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, first, I, too, would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for introducing this debate and other noble Lords for their contributions. I have spent most of my working life turning up for work on Fridays: I have never thought that it was a disbarment to other people to do so as well. I agree with the assessment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and her comments about the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, last week.
	I, too, am full of admiration for my good and right honourable friend Chris Smith who has demonstrated what treatment can guarantee; that is, a fine and active public life. We all owe a debt to President Nelson Mandela for his openness and leadership.
	The sheer scale of the AIDS pandemic is well known to us all. The statistics are staggering and increasing year on year. In 2004, more than 3 million people died and nearly 5 million people were newly infected with the virus. Today, almost 40 million people are living with HIV.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, rightly raised the tragic plight of children and AIDS. Millions of children have been made vulnerable or orphaned by AIDS. As the noble Lord, Lord St John, emphasised, the worst affected region is sub-Saharan Africa, which has the greatest proportion of children who are orphans. In 2003, an estimated 12.3 million African children were orphaned as a result of AIDS. The worst, as many noble Lords have said, is yet to come. The number of children orphaned by AIDS is expected to rise to 18.4 million by 2010. As the pandemic unfolds, a growing number will be double orphans—children who have lost both their parents.
	The impact of HIV and AIDS on children presents a serious, growing challenge to families, communities and societies, and to the achievement of the majority of the millennium development goals. As I said last week, there will be a detailed assessment of where we are on those goals within a few weeks. However, as noble Lords have said, by any measure there is a plain risk that civil society is unravelling and at risk as a result of what is happening.
	The orphan crisis exacerbates extreme poverty and hunger, undermines progress towards universal primary education, increases child mortality and accelerates the spread of HIV. As other noble Lords have noted, thousands of children—especially girls—are pulled out of school when the breadwinner dies. Girls and women are affected most harshly.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, asked about the input in relation to the funding of education for young women and girls. That has been one of the key focuses of government policy, which is the right policy. Evidence from 17 African countries and four Latin American countries shows that better-educated girls hold off longer from sexual activity and are more likely to require their partners to use condoms. In short, they act in a more informed and effective way. Women with some schooling are nearly five times as likely as uneducated women to have used a condom the last time that they had sex. The case speaks for itself.
	AIDS results not only in growing numbers of orphans, but also increases more generally the vulnerability of children living in families and communities affected by the disease. The majority of these orphans are between the ages of 11 and 15 years—young adults who have their own sexual health and reproductive rights needs. Although it is not always commented upon, to assist the aid effort there is also a plain need to understand the research being done on the psycho-social impact of AIDS orphaning. What research has been done is at an early stage, but there is clear evidence of depression and anxiety states and even where high levels of that kind of distress are not reported, young people are much more likely to suffer from physical ailments and to find it hard to sustain the social fabric of the communities in which they live. We need to work in that area as well.
	The challenges are enormous and worse impacts on children are yet to come. To date, the burden of the tragedy has been borne largely by families themselves. In countries like Uganda, up to one-third of all households are caring for at least one orphan. In May last year the Select Committee on International Development held a special hearing on orphans and vulnerable children. My honourable friend Gareth Thomas, the Minister at DfID, gave evidence, as did many of the NGOs. Mr Thomas was honest to admit that the UK and the international community in general are not doing enough to mitigate the crisis around orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. We must acknowledge that. He pledged that the new UK strategy on tackling AIDS would address this.
	We therefore fully endorse the UNICEF framework for the protection, care and support of orphans. We support the first of the strategies outlined in the framework. Strengthening the capacity of families to protect and care for orphans by improving the economic capacity of households is absolutely central. There are many different ways in which it can be done: cash transfers in the form of pensions; grants for children; in-kind transfers and so forth. The noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, is surely right to say that we need to understand the most local and household economies if we are to have the right impact and provide tailor-made responses to poverty in general as well as the pandemic more specifically.
	The UK is totally committed to tackling AIDS. Indeed, we are already the world's second biggest donor for AIDS and sexual and reproductive health assistance. The commitments signalled when the Prime Minister launched Taking Action, the UK's strategy for tackling HIV and AIDS in the developing world, underline still further this commitment.
	My noble friend Lord Rea asked whether we evaluate what we have done in order to make sure that we are making progress. We certainly do, even quite early in these programmes. He is right to point out that each country must discuss factually and honestly the problems with their own peoples if we are to make any of these programmes work. The noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, also helpfully reminded us what we can do through external work, in particular the quite exceptional work of the BBC World Service and the World Service Trust on AIDS awareness. I too congratulate both those bodies on their work.
	The document Taking Action sets out how the UK will respond to the challenges by promoting a comprehensive response to tackle prevention, treatment and care as well as addressing the social impact of AIDS, prioritising the needs of women, young people including orphans, and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS.
	I hope in my next few comments to cover most of the questions put to me by the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Neuberger. We have committed £1.5 billion of taxpayers' money to tackling HIV and AIDS over the next three years. This overall commitment includes a doubling of our support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, bringing our total support to over £250 million through to 2008; additional funding, to £36 million over four years, to UNAIDS to support its global leadership; additional funding, to £80 million over four years, to UNFPA to support its HIV prevention and sexual and reproductive health work with women; increased support for research into microbicides and vaccines for HIV prevention; and at least £150 million on programmes to meet the needs of orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. I have been asked if all this is new money. I can give the categorical assurance to noble Lords that it is all new money.
	The UK became one of the first countries to endorse UNICEF's Strategic Framework for the Protection, Care and Support of Orphans and Children Made Vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. This provides guidelines for the global response to the issues.
	We are committed to acting within the framework's five pillars—and, indeed, urging it on the United States and all other governments. These pillars are: strengthening families' ability to cope through financial credits, childcare and developing skills; starting and supporting community-based responses, largely through involving local leaders—as the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, pointed out, political leadership is needed locally as well as at national level; ensuring that vulnerable children have access to essential services, particularly education and healthcare; ensuring that governments protect the children who are the most vulnerable; and, finally, raising awareness to create an environment that understands and supports these children.
	These pillars are strengthened by three of our own considerations: to support national development plans and not in any way to undermine them; to support parents at the same time as we address children by providing effective prevention, treatment and care services—keeping parents alive prevents and delays orphaning for obvious reasons; and to act with all of our partners, national and international, as we work at the global, regional and country levels.
	I mentioned that we are committed to spending at least £150 million over the next three years on orphans and vulnerable children, and I should like to give a little more detail on those plans. First, we are committed to supporting UNICEF, which will lead the endeavour, with about £44 million over three years. Part of this funding will go towards assisting national governments to analyse the extent of their problem and to plan an adequate response.
	Secondly, we will spend £85 million in Africa through DfID country programmes. Of the money we are spending, approximately 90 per cent will be spent in Africa and 10 per cent elsewhere. Thirdly, we will spend at least £5 million in Asia. Fourthly, we will spend £2 million on scientific research and, finally, a further £14 million will be programmed as the needs emerge from the other work I have described.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked a number of questions and I shall do my best to answer them as briefly as I can. She asked first about DfID's country assistance plans to countries with large numbers of orphans. Country assistance plans are reviewed annually by DfID in the country offices. The purpose of the plan is to report progress against public service agreement targets, which include tackling HIV/AIDS. This year the reviews will have a strong focus on assessing what progress has been made in each country on AIDS, what contribution the international community has specifically made and where further action will be required. I should say to my noble friend Lord Rea and to the noble Lord, Lord St John, that many of the strong links in doing this are with the voluntary organisations; they often know much more than anyone else. The role of civil society organisations is plainly vital and we accept it in all countries.
	I was asked whether DfID's field offices will be producing detailed action plans in addition to the revised country assistance plans in those countries. It is important that affected countries have detailed action plans to address AIDS. DfID strongly supports the "three ones" approach—that is, one strategic framework, one AIDS authority, one monitoring system—with due regard to the civil society organisations. Thus DfID's own country plans are designed to support the implementation of "three ones" rather than to set out a separate or parallel plan.
	I was asked what steps the Government are taking to ensure that DfID field offices help to increase the capacity of the most marginalised ministries in developing countries responsible for protecting the rights of orphans and children. Through its country programmes, DfID is supporting many governments to advance their national OVC plans through health and education sectors—those ministries—the social protection programmes and working with civil society. To date, 16 sub-Saharan African countries have drawn up national OVC action plans in that light.
	I have been asked what steps the Government are taking to ensure that civil society organisations in the developing countries are able to access resources. I mention this a little in passing. We are fully committed to supporting the work of these organisations in addressing the AIDS pandemic. Much of the support funded by our OVC finance commitment will be implemented in partnership with local and international CSOs. It is plainly vital that it should work that way.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, rightly made the point that the deliverers on occasion face a number of potential funders, and that can be quite a complex business. Co-ordination under the "three ones" approach will certainly help. However, I know that some civil society organisations are quite pleased on occasions when one funding application has not worked to find a niche in which another one does. We have probably all, in our time, relied on the degree of flexibility that that affords. I agree very strongly with the points that the noble Baroness made.
	The noble Lord, Lord St John, made points about building civil society organisations in South Africa, as elsewhere. They are ultimately always about empowerment if they are to work. I strongly agree, and I also agree with him that sport and other social activities have a decisive influence.
	We are trying to ensure that the input sector codes for social protection for orphans and vulnerable children will enable us to track properly and monitor the £150 million commitment to make sure that it does not go in the wrong direction, as several noble Lords have mentioned. Legislation, institution-building and making sure that we reach the organisations that work with street children are all vital if we are to succeed.
	I am sorry if I am making these points at too great a length, but it is such a vital, heart-tearing issue that I want to ensure that the House is properly informed of the arrangements in which we are engaged.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked about the high-level conferences in which we should be involved. In March, UNAIDS and the UK will co-host a high-level meeting to agree an action plan within the "three ones" concept to underpin future co-operation between developing countries and their partners. We aim for a consensus, stepping up the response to AIDS in the most affected countries and making sure that national governments can drive forward the action plans.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, asked how we are seeking to influence the United States and others. I have made a point about that, but the conference I have just mentioned and the one I am about to mention will be vital in the preparation of precisely that endeavour.
	We will be hosting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria's second replenishment conference in September this year. The meeting will be held alongside a broader AIDS funding meeting, building on the March event that I have just mentioned, which aims to close the financial gap for AIDS.
	Using generic drugs is one of the issues that the Chancellor mentioned specifically last week. The activities of companies which are not always seen as making the greatest contribution in this area come to mind. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, is offering its key drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS at zero profit prices. Boehringer Ingelheim is providing its drugs to developing countries for five years free of charge, in many cases. So there are some quite inspiring examples of people producing the non-generic varieties of drugs and doing some excellent work.
	By the end of 2005, we want an agreement among donors and the international system on a well co-ordinated and funded plan to tackle this vast problem. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, asked perhaps the most critical question. Plans are plans— they are just words on paper if they are not put into action. The vital question is, of course, political leadership—the absolute determination to make the plans work. I believe—perhaps I would—that we are working extremely hard, with support on all sides of the House, to ensure that political leadership in countries affected by HIV and AIDS is improving and is focusing, and that Ministers in those departments understand what they need to do. A lot of the work is tailored to that.
	We are working on other kinds of leadership in the developing countries; we are working with religious leaders and leaders in civil societies. We are offering a good deal of aid in that area, because that is so often exactly where it is needed to yield the right results. Successful politically supported AIDS strategies are beginning to emerge as a result—Thailand has been mentioned.
	In conclusion, I believe that we have serious plans into which we have put very considerable amounts of funding. Political leadership and a steely determination to make the difference are what is required. I thank all noble Lords who have, to a person, arrived at precisely that conclusion.

House adjourned at twenty five minutes before three o'clock.